Del Duca supported station
Minister says he had ‘input’ on decision to build GO stop in his Vaughan constituency
Ontario’s transportation minister said he contributed “input” to the provincial transit agency’s decision to approve a new GO station that will be in his riding and which a secret internal report determined should not be built.
Minister Steven Del Duca also asserted that demand for the new station would be “off the charts.” But a government analysis found the stop would actually cause a net loss in transit ridership.
At a Wednesday event to mark the groundbreaking for a new downtown bus terminal and office complex, Del Duca was asked about his role in the approval of Kirby GO station in his Vaughan riding.
As the Star reported Sunday, an internal report commissioned by Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency, recommended that Kirby not be considered for construction for at least another10 years. The report has not been made public, but a copy was obtained by the Star.
An initial business case for Kirby released in March determined the station’s negative effects on the transit system and the economy outweighed any potential benefits.
Despite those reports, the Metrolinx board approved Kirby last June, along with 11 other new GO stations as part of the province’s regional express rail program. The station is expected to cost $125.7 million to build and operate over the next six decades.
Asked whether he directed the agency to approve Kirby, Del Duca responded that the approval process was a “collaborative effort” between Metrolinx and him. “Throughout the deliberation process on this, I had the opportunity to provide input, and I did,” he said.
Asked what his input was, Del Duca said: “My input was that, not just for Kirby but across the board, when you look at some of the circumstances that exist, that we have to take into account a holistic or an entire picture.”
Del Duca predicted demand for the Kirby stop would be “off the charts.”
Asked why the Metrolinx analyses didn’t reflect his prediction of high demand for Kirby, Del Duca said “there are other considerations that have to be taken into account in terms of the broader growth poten- tial” around the station.
He suggested the reports commissioned by Metrolinx, which analyzed potential new stations according to a methodology developed by the transit agency, didn’t fully capture development potential near Kirby because they focused on the 800-metre radius around the station.
He said the city of Vaughan and York Region had provided information to Metrolinx about projected density in the wider area around the Kirby site, which showed it could support an express rail line in the future.
He said the government needs to ensure it isn’t building transit “for what we anticipate in this moment or in the next couple of years.”
The initial business case for Kirby station examined the potential performance of the stop over a 60-year period. It determined that by 2031 more than 5,100 people would use the stop every day, but more than half of them would be existing GO riders.
But the report predicted that the additional time it would take for trains to stop at Kirby would make GO service less attractive for “upstream” riders on the Barrie line and cause about 3 per cent to take their cars instead. That would lead to a net loss of 188 daily riders on the line, which over 60 years would mean 688.1million more kilometres driven on the region’s roads.