Yonge subway expansion may halt if province doesn’t fund relief line

The Yonge subway extension may be put on hold if the province doesn’t hand over more money for the Downtown Relief Line, Mayor John Tory warned on Tuesday.

Standing in Riverdale, Tory, along with TTC chair Josh Colle, once again slammed the province for its failure to equal federal funding for transit in its most recent budget.

Tory has repeatedly stated that the Downtown Relief Line is the city’s top priority when it comes to transit expansion projects. It’s a message that has been echoed by TTC CEO Andy Byford.

But without added provincial funding, there simply isn’t money available to push forward with the project, Tory claims.

So Tory is now taking aim at the Yonge subway expansion, which would see the Yonge Street portion of Line 1 expand out to York Region. It’s a transit project of which the Wynne Liberals are in greatly in favour.

“The relief line must be funded and very well advanced before we proceed with any actual extension north of the Yonge Street subway,” Tory stated on Tuesday.

“Next week the city’s executive committee will consider a report for the planning and design for the relief line and for the Yonge North subway extension … though the report suggests continued work on both, I may have to reconsider our continuing with work on the Yonge North extension while there is such uncertainty surrounding the relief line.”

When the budget was delivered last month, Finance Minister Charles Sousa said the province would stick with its current financial commitments to Toronto but no additional funding for new projects was announced. Sousa was quick to point out that the province was already ponying up $150-million to Metrolinx for the project.

“It is important to remember that we were first at the table last June when we announced that we are providing $150 million so that Metrolinx, Toronto, and the Toronto Transit Commission can work collaboratively to begin planning and business case analysis work on the Downtown Relief Line project,” he explained in a statement.

“This is $150 million that is already being used to get this project shovel-ready.”

Premier Kathleen Wynne stood behind the budget and reminded Tory that her responsibility was for the entire province, not just Toronto, and that other cities also need funding.

But Tory continued to question the thinking behind the decision.

“Why would you invest $150-million in design and planning if you weren’t planning to be a partner in funding the building of the transit line? It’s kind of like spending $50,000 on architect’s drawings to do something by way of a new house, but not having any way of knowing how you’re going to pay for it. It doesn’t make sense.”

Tory claims expanding Line 1 out to York Region, without a downtown relief line in place, would only increase congestion on the already overcrowded line.

Last month, TTC CEO Andy Byford claimed the downtown relief line was critical and without it Yonge-Bloor Station would soon be overwhelmed.

“I’ve said, since the day I got here, that, in my professional opinion, the relief line is number one priority for the TTC. Whatever we do, we must provide relief for this key interchange at Yonge and Bloor,” he explained.

“This station will be saturated, overwhelmed, unable to cope by 2031 if a relief line is not in place by then.”

Approximately 700,000 people ride Line 1 and 500,000 people ride the Line 2 every day. Of those, 400,000 riders get on or off trains at Yonge-Bloor station every day.

Tory believes that going forward, the work of building transit in Toronto must become a constant.

“Never again can we let decades go by without anything being built and without the next project and the next project after that being planned,” he stated. “We will build and we will build and we will build because that is that a great, livable city does and it is the only way we are really going to tackle crippling congestion.”