Stakeholders pushing for Waterfront East LRT to be built

A transit line along the east of Toronto’s waterfront that has long been discussed has passed another step towards approval on Wednesday.

The design and engineering plans for the Waterfront East Light Rail Transit line (WELRT), which will travel through the Port Lands from Union Station and along Queen’s Quay, have been advanced by the city’s Executive Committee.

Wednesday’s report recommended city council direct staff to “finalize design work underway and to undertake a constructability review of the WELRT concerning other major infrastructure projects,” including the Ontario Line, along with an updated cost estimate by the second quarter of 2023.

Those who have been at the forefront of the movement to get the Waterfront East Light Rail Transit Line built are pushing council to move forward.

“We’ve been waiting for the activity to take place related to transportation, but we’re not waiting for it because we know that the waterfront is part of the future, and transportation is part of that future,” said George Brown College President Gervan Fearon. “It can accelerate the kind of economic growth and development, but also attract amazing talent and technology and investment to Toronto.”

Waterfront BIA Executive Director Tim Kocur tells CityNews that the WELRT has been named one of Toronto’s next priority projects, which is not funded yet. However, with the latest advancement today, they hope that there will be funding for the transit line from all three levels of government by the middle of next year.

“Of course, we’re not excited to see that this project has been delayed. However, there’s also been some good news over the last couple of years. City staff have been working on an alignment of the waterfront LRT that will go further into the Port Lands and its first phase, which means we’ll see more of that opportunity.”

Mayor John Tory said they could not repeat the same mistakes with the waterfront in the west end of the city in Humber Bay Shores.

“We’ve seen huge investment there, but we’ve only seen adequate transit. We’re still trying to remedy that, except the developments already there and the people living there, and they are having trouble getting around,” said Tory.

For years now, condos, office buildings, and college campuses have been going up, along with retail and public spaces.

“The risk with delaying the waterfront LRT any further is the Port Lands will be flood protected after 2024, so having the train in place first to make sure that we maximize and have density through the Port Lands as it’s developed out.”

Both Kocur and Fearon expressed that people expected this for a long time.

“Since the mid-90s, there has been the idea of having a transportation network here at waterfront east, and part of that was based on some amazing economic analysis that showed that having a transportation network here would not only have an incredible impact on time savings for commute, sustainability benefit as well, but billions of dollars in economic activity would be generated,” said Fearon.

Kocur adds it’s in the best interest of all levels of government to fund the project.

“When we’re asked about, ‘How do you propose paying for the LRT?’ We say there are probably no transit projects in North America that pay for themselves faster than this. All three levels of government would get about $20 billion in extra revenue over the next 20 years with that transit in place.”

‘We need to make sure that the opportunities to the waterfront continue to be built out,” Kocur said.

“We’re here to show we’re one of more than 40 businesses and civic leaders that have all written votes of support for the LRT because we want to show the city and all the councillors that they have a lot of support for this project from a lot of real estate groups, of course, and businesses, big and small.”

The next step for the city is to find funding from the provincial and federal governments while other major transit projects are still ongoing.