Easing subway crowding lurches closer to reality
Shovels could be in the ground to construct the relief subway line as early as next year. And the project could open as early as 2029.
Those were among the more noteworthy messages delivered at a press conference held at Pape Station Thursday morning that may mark some kind of signpost on the decades-contemplated, much-needed new subway line’s transition from notion to action. If you believe it. Some will have a hard time with that, as it’s generally wise to treat any transit promise with a dose of cynicism. This is the city that once saw a provincial government fill in an already-dug subway tunnel on Eglinton, after all.
But Mayor John Tory wants you to believe it. “This project is going to be built,” Tory said at one point.
If the specifics of his announcement were about dollars in this year’s budget and their effect on projected timelines, the more general message was: this is actually happening. The subway line that would run across Queen St. downtown and then north up to Pape Station, and in phase two farther north to
Don Mills, which is needed to handle downtown-bound passengers who otherwise wind up on the over-capacity Yonge line, is coming.
“I am committed to being the mayor that gets the relief line built,” he said.
“My determination is absolute,” he said more than once.
This announcement is the “ultimate proof that people need” that we are getting on with building the relief line.
To answer those who say that unlike the Scarborough subway extension, the relief line’s funding isn’t sorted out yet, he acknowledged that not every dollar has been allocated yet, and the city still has to arrange to chip in its share, but pointed to billions of dollars committed to Toronto’s transit priorities from the federal and provincial governments that are ready to be spent — a total of roughly $9 billion as of this spring, to which the provincial government of Doug Ford has indicated it may add as much as $5 billion more.
“We will have all the necessary money to complete this and all the other projects that are in the transit plan,” Tory said.
And to kick-start that process, he announced specifically that the city would be spending some $325 million over two years, including a proposed $162 million in the capital budget proposal that will come before city council soon, to begin work in a way that will cut two years off the projected construction timeline (in addition to the $205 million al- ready being spent on design and engineering work). Currently about 10 per cent of the design work has been completed — typically when a project gets to 30 per cent design, procurement can begin in earnest. But even as that design work continues, he and TTC chair Jaye Robinson explained, they will begin acquiring property, buying technical equipment and other pre-construction preliminaries that would have been done later.
This isn’t additional money being spent above the older budget projections, the city staff member heading up the relief line project clarified after the formal speeches were done, but money being spent earlier that was planned. He said it’s possible construction could begin at various key sites as early as 2020.
One possible banana peel most observers can see lying on the ground waiting to slip everything up is that the provincial government is planning to seize control of Toronto’s subway system and all its building projects — possibly within the next few months. So maybe don’t count your chickens when Ford is threatening to take over your incubator.
Still, moving the project closer to reality — to getting “shovels in the ground” — may make it harder, politically, to walk away from or indefinitely postpone, especially for a selfproclaimed subway champion like Ford.
But maybe it’s possible, too, that the stars have finally aligned such that provincial interests this regard compliment the city’s and the TTC’s. Not only have the premier and his transportation minister repeatedly promised to build the relief line and said it is a top priority, but it may be a practical prerequisite for some of their more obviously beloved projects. Extending the Yonge line farther north into the 905, and feeding more passengers onto Yonge from the east with the Scarborough extension — and even down the line with a possible Sheppard extension — just cannot work without giving some passengers an alternate route. The subway extensions they think are political winners need this one — long thought a political loser — if they are going to become reality in a way that doesn’t completely break the whole subway system.
“I don’t think I have to call on him,” Tory said of asking Ford for support. “I think he’s there.”
So: the relief line. Maybe by 2029. Can you believe it? Should you believe it?
Like I said at the top, in this town, you should believe in transit projects when you can ride them and probably not before.
But Tory’s words about it are fairly unequivocal, and hundreds of millions of dollars is a lot to commit to a project in just a couple of years if you don’t expect it to be built. The one-decade timeline leaves very little wiggle room for continued hedging.
For decades, this subway line has been an aspiration — and always appeared to be a mirage, constantly receding with the horizon. Thursday it began to appear a little closer to reality.