Day: April 15, 2025

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TTC Major Projects Update and Funding Shortfalls

Information on large transit projects and their status is scattered through several reports. Two of these appear on the TTC Board’s April 16, 2025 agenda, but for a broader picture we must look elsewhere. In part this is due to the split responsibility between TTC and the City’s Transit Expansion Office. Also, some details lie in the TTC Capital Budget, 10-year and 15-year plans.

On the April 16 agenda:

Previous City and TTC Reports:

The TTC Capital Budget contains a high level listing of many projects much longer than in the “Major Projects Update”.

There is no surprise that the TTC faces a very large gap between its capital needs and available funding. The City is the primary funder for projects still on the TTC’s books, with smaller contributions from the provincial and federal governments. Expansion projects such as the Ontario Line were taken over completely by the province.

This greatly increases Ontario’s share of transit spending overall, but with the caveat that they build what suits their political climate, and Toronto is left to raise money, such as it can, for anything else. Another recent issue is that originally, Ontario’s projects were to be 100% capital with operating costs borne by the City. This has proved impractical, and Ontario now guarantees an operating subsidy for new Lines 5 and 6, albeit not in perpetuity.

As for the Federal government, it will (assuming the current government remains in power) fund a national transit program over ten years, but the money allocated to Toronto (and every other city) falls well short of their needs. Moreover, the funding is still done on a project basis with cities applying for each project rather than simply getting a block grant. This is different from the provincial and federal gas tax rebates to cities which can spend them as they see fit.

The TTC and City both produce reports tracking major transit projects, but these do not cover the full extent of the funding problem. Many issues with infrastructure condition, for example, are not mentioned in these reports although they are critical to the viability of transit service. In this article, I will review both the formally acknowledged “major projects” as well as the large dollar line items within the Capital Budget that get much less attention.

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