Edward Keenan
Gardiner costs soar, but will we think twice?
You remember how the city is rebuilding the Gardiner Expressway? Well the cost of that project has gone up in the past year. A lot.
The new price tag, included quietly in a report to Mayor John Tory’s executive committee, is more than $1 billion higher than the one approved just one year ago. ONE BILLION DOLLARS. But wait, there’s more. The cost inflation to the people of Toronto is even higher than that, because $820 million in expected federal funding appears not to be coming.
So the net cost to local taxpayers of the Gardiner rebuild is, actually, $1.897 billion higher than it was claimed in August 2015.
But wait, it’s even worse than that makes it seem.
In 2014, when the plan to repair and rebuild it from the 427 to Logan Ave. was developed, the total cost was estimated at $1.9 billion.
Then last year, they changed the estimate to $2.6 billion. Now, after further study and calculation, they say the cost is $3.637 billion. That’s a 91-per-cent price increase in two years, if you’re trying to do the math. And apparently we’re footing the bill locally, with no help from Ottawa.
How the hell can we expect our councillors to make decisions when the numbers they base them on are subject to wild doubling and tripling after decisions are made?
A $1.8-billion increase in the amount payable in one year is not some kind of rounding error — it’s the total estimated price tag of the proposed Eglinton East LRT.
It’s way more than the city spent, adjusted for inflation, on the entire Sheppard subway line. It is about $700 for every person in Toronto.
Mayor John Tory, when he was campaigning, said he was going to stop budget escalations like this — his strategy, if I recall, involved regular weekly meetings to make sure things were on track. That strategy may require revision.
But perhaps the plan requires revision, too. The part we may want to pay particular attention to is the portion east of Jarvis St.
You may recall the bitter, very close vote in summer 2015 on whether to rebuild the eastern Gardiner in a new configuration (the “hybrid” option) or whether to tear it down and widen Lake Shore Blvd. in its place (the boulevard option).
The boulevard option was projected to cost $326 million in upfront capital, while the hybrid was said to cost $414 million.
Revisions to the hybrid plan meant the cost increased to $1 billion in August 2015.
Now, we learn, that portion has a capital cost of $1.492 billion.
It has gone from costing 25 per cent more than the boulevard to 457 per cent more.
Would the cost of removal have had a similar escalation? It’s hard to see how it would, because being a road on the ground, it’s a far simpler project.
Either way, the cost of keeping the eastern Gardiner, a 2.2-kilometre stretch used by 5,200 westbound cars an hour in the peak morning rush, is now more than $1 billion higher than we had thought.
This, we may recall, was estimated to ensure those 5,000 peak-hour cars did not face delays of two to three minutes per trip.
To many people, that didn’t seem like a worthwhile expenditure when the cost was $414 million. It was a 24-21 nail-biter of a vote at city council. Now that the cost of what was approved has more than tripled, before preliminary engineering design has even begun, should we revisit the decision?
I think so. But then, of course I would. I thought we should tear it down and build the boulevard last time we had this debate.
And I fear that whether you agree with me that a near tripling in cost should spur at least a pause for another discussion and vote on this issue will depend on where you stood in the initial debate.
It is my sad observation after years of watching local politics that cost overruns, even massive ones, rarely change how people feel about whether a project is worth doing.
When the St. Clair streetcar rightof-way saw its budget balloon to $106 million from $65 million, those who had fought the project declared it a disaster, while those who supported it all along thought it was a regrettable overrun, but worthwhile when all was done.
When the price estimate of the Scarborough subway extension rose to more than $3 billion from $1.8 billion, even as the number of stops on it fell to one, opponents thought the already questionable value proposition disappeared, while supporters continued to think it was worth every penny.
It seems that once people decide they want something in the city, no price is too much to pay to get it. Maybe it’s human nature, and the reason the car dealer puts a cheap sticker on the window and then dings you for stereo, air conditioning, windows that roll down and so on, until you’re just nodding and smiling dumbly when you agree to a sketchy rust-proofing system that costs two weeks salary.
Once you’ve decided to buy, you stay decided.
But still. We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars here. The cost of things doubling and tripling after we agreed to buy them, and even before we begin to build them, to levels it will take us decades to pay down. This is not right.
These are decisions that, it is obvious, were made on mistaken premises.
It seems prudent to override our impulse to stick to our guns and see if new information is capable of changing our minds.
But of course I would think that, because my mind doesn’t require changing on this issue. The billiondollar question is if anyone else’s will. Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca. Follow: @thekeenanwire