Keesmaat calls for subway cost disclosure before election

Former chief planner says voters have the right to know updated cost estimate of multibillion plan

Former chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat says city staff have a duty to report the updated cost of the Scarborough subway to the public before an election.

Keesmaat told CBC’s Matt Galloway on Wednesday morning that if the updated costs for the multibillion-dollar project are available they should be reported.

“The question is . . . if they have that number available — do they have a duty to release it as a way of informing the election and the decision making?” she said. “My opinion is, absolutely.”

The Star earlier reported a TTC briefing document obtained through a freedom of information request reveals those updated costs will be available in September — at least a month before the Oct. 22 election. The current estimate for the subway, based on very little design work, is $3.35 billion.

Mayor John Tory tweeted his ongoing position that reporting the cost is a “staffcontrolled process that was approved by council.” He said a staff report will include design, construction schedules and cost estimates.

According to the briefing document, a baseline scope, budget, schedule and known risks based on 30 per cent design and the corresponding cost estimate will be available in September 2018.

Previously, city staff had only said the costs would be ready in “late 2018” and would not clarify if that was before or after the election. But because there are no council or committee meetings scheduled after July, staff have said they can’t report back until January 2019.

In an email late Wednesday, city spokesperson Wynna Brown said the TTC briefing “refers to the planned timing for initial cost inputs from TTC engineering staff. These are not the full cost estimates necessary for consideration by council.”

“There has to be a moment where you say, wait a minute, the cost-benefit analysis no longer works.” JENNIFER KEESMAAT FORMER CHIEF CITY PLANNER

She said further work by TTC and city staff would be needed to “appropriately account for financing, procurement model, market assessment and other critical factors.”

Earlier, Brown told the CBC that “there is then the need to analyze that work in order to develop cost estimates and schedules that go into the staff report.”

But the TTC briefing says that cost estimates and schedules will be available in September.

Council gave staff direction in March 2017 to report back to executive committee when the project reached 30 per cent design and an updated cost was ready.

At that time, council would decide whether to move forward with construction. Keesmaat said the last cost increase — the estimate ballooned by $1 billion in 2016 — caused her to wonder if there is a breaking point.

She noted it’s unclear whether the cost will continue to climb, though it usually does with major infrastructure projects.

“There has to be a threshold. There has to be a moment where you say, wait a minute, the cost-benefit analysis no longer works,” she said.

The former chief planner was the one who introduced the new plan in early 2016 that saw the number of subway stops reduced to one from three.

The savings from those eliminated stops, she and other staff said at the time, could fund the cost of extending the Eglinton Crosstown light-rail line from Kennedy to the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus.

After it was reported that the cost for the subway had climbed — effectively pricing out that LRT — Keesmaat maintained the network option was still the best recommendation for Scarborough. She told council the value-for-money question was one they had to grapple with.

To date, there has never been a cost comparison of the subway option and the previously-approved, sevenstop LRT option to replace the aging Scarborough RT. That LRT was months away from being ready to go to tender for construction when it was scrapped by council under former mayor Rob Ford, based on a staff analysis that Keesmaat would later call “rushed” and “problematic.”

A cost-benefit analysis of those two options, side-by-side, has never been requested by council. Councillor Josh Matlow has repeatedly tried to make that request, but has been voted down by Tory and his allies.

A request for the auditor general to conduct such an audit was also rejected by the audit committee. Auditor general Beverley Romeo-Beehler can choose to do that audit without direction from council, but has said she won’t.

At audit committee on Wednesday, Matlow questioned the auditor general’s stated mandate to assist council in holding itself and city administrators accountable for “the quality of stewardship over public funds” and “the achievement of value for money in city operations.”

When it comes to the Scarborough subway, Matlow said, “We’ve failed so far in doing those two things.”