Study this folly

If anyone had any doubts that the $3.35-billion one-stop Scarborough subway extension is one giant political boondoggle, hundreds of pages of emails to and from the city’s departing chief planner should stifle them.

As the Star’s Jennifer Pagliaro, who obtained the emails from July, 2013, sums up: Jennifer Keesmaat was desperately trying to make it known that a seven-stop light-rail line the province had already agreed to pay for, and the city had already approved, was the better option.

Indeed, she wrote in one email: “The subway option DOES NOT make the list of (ten) priority projects when compared with other projects across the city.”

That correspondence should set off alarm bells with Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk. She should agree to a request from a group of activists to evaluate whether the proposed Scarborough extension is good value for money. After all, the province is on the hook for $1.8 billion of the cost.

Scarborough Transit Action asked for the investigation last month, arguing the decision to go ahead with the subway extension over the earlier planned LRT was based on “the use of non-evidence-based decision-making.” The emails obtained by the Star would certainly back that up.

“The auditor general has a responsibility to ensure that there is a good value for money, and we feel that this is very bad value for money,” said Moya Beall, a spokesperson for the group.

In fact, $3.35 billion is the very least the one-stop subway extension might cost. City staff acknowledge it could cost as much as $5.02 billion.

All this for a subway that a Metrolinx business case analysis found was “not a worthwhile use of money,” and studies have shown will not attract enough new riders to make it sensible. Nor will it serve the low-income neighbourhoods the LRT line would.

In other words, this is a project that won’t serve the people of Scarborough well, though it is supposedly being built for them.

Still, Mayor John Tory continues to argue vehemently in favour of the project, saying those against the extension are “playing politics.” The evidence would seem to suggest just the opposite.

The auditor general should put this questionable plan under the microscope, something both the mayor and Premier Kathleen Wynne might have done long ago if they weren’t so busy trying to curry favour with Scarborough voters.

Ontario’s auditor general should conduct a probe into whether the subway makes financial sense