Relief Line project set to accelerate
Mayor John Tory says city and TTC staff have found a way to speed up construction of the relief line by at least two years, a proposal that would mean the long-awaited subway project could open by 2029.
The plan, which Tory announced at a news conference at Pape subway station Thursday morning, would require the city to accelerate $325 million in spending on early work for the relief line over the next two years.
The TTC said that’s money that would have been spent on the project anyway and doesn’t represent an increase to its budget.
“I know while the date that we’re talking about here in the late 2020s still sounds far away, the bottom line is that the faster you get on with these projects and everything you can do to speed them up, the sooner people are going to be able to ride on that transit, the sooner we’re going to have real relief that people have talked about for decades,” he said.
The mayor’s announcement came as Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government moves ahead with plans to take over the TTC subway network, a decision that could wrest control of new projects like the relief line away from city hall.
Tory, who last month backed a council decision to enter into talks about the takeover, said it was “grossly premature” to assume what the outcome of those discussions would be, and in the meantime the city has a responsibility to move ahead with building transit.
He said ideally, the provincial and federal governments would share in the cost of accel- erating the project. The first phase of the relief line would connect the eastern end of Line 2 (Bloor-Danforth) at Pape to Line 1 (Yonge-University-Spadina) at Queen St. downtown to relieve crowding on the existing network. Estimates indicate the seven-kilometre line would cost $6.8 billion.
Although the federal and provincial governments have announced almost $9 billion combined to fund Toronto’s priority transit projects over the next decade, as of yet no level of government has formally allocated money to the construction of the relief line.
The proposal to speed up construction of the line would require accelerating design work, property acquisition and utility relocation, and starting procurement for equipment and contracts required for tunnelling. TTC staff said construction on early works for the line could begin as early as 2020.
The $325 million required for the plan would be added to the TTC’s capital budget over the next two years, with $162 million coming in this year’s spending plan, expected to be released Friday.
Tory noted that normally the city wouldn’t take such concrete steps to advance a major transit line until it had reached at least 30 per cent design, the stage by which plans and budgets are considered relatively firm according to industry stan- dards. The relief line is at about 10 per cent design. The TTC plans to report to council by the end of this year with 30 per cent design.
“In essence the plan we are discussing today is to complete all project preparations in a parallel manner, rather than in a sequence. This will allow us to get shovels in the ground as soon as possible,” said TTC chair Jaye Robinson.
As the Star reported in December, council has received legal advice that it has no legislative power to stop the province from taking ownership of Toronto’s subway network. Transportation Minister Jeff Yurek has said the province plans to introduce legislation this spring to enable the upload.
Yurek said he welcomed the mayor’s announcement, but said Queen’s Park is best positioned to build new subways more efficiently.
“We applaud the 2029 target, and we will work with the city to meet or beat it,” he said. “The upload will get subways built more quickly as the province can issue zoning orders, compel utilities to prioritize relocation work and more effectively appropriate land, among other things, to move construction forward faster.” The measures Tory announced Thursday closely mirror a plan put forward by his main rival Jennifer Keesmaat in last year’s mayoral election.