Province gives Toronto council week to commit funding for new Yonge subway extension station

As work continues to extend the TTC’s Yonge subway line north to Richmond Hill, the provincial government is giving the City of Toronto just a week to commit to funding a new, sought-after station in the municipality’s borders.

Willowdale Coun. Lily Cheng shared a letter sent to City of Toronto officials on her Instagram page late Friday. It’s in response to a business case submitted in late 2023 for adding a proposed Cummer station to the eight-kilometre Line 1 extension.

“The government’s position regarding Cummer station remains unchanged. Consistent with previous communication to the City, the addition of Cummer station to the [Yonge North Subway Extension] project is dependent on the City providing the full funding required for the construction (including ancillary costs) and financing of the station,” the letter from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation dated Feb. 1 said.

It went on to say that to build headwall protection that would allow a station to be constructed, Metrolinx needs a written commitment by Feb. 9 to have “enough time to update all procurement documents … without impacting project timelines and costs.”

“I’m very disappointed … and it’s unfortunate they made this decision,” Cheng told CityNews while visiting the intersection of Yonge Street and Cummer Avenue, nearly halfway between Finch and Steeles avenues.

“They really backed us into a corner because this intersection here you’re going to see towers.”

During a Toronto city council meeting on Dec. 14, municipal staff said their recently developed business case for Cummer station projected 23,000 people would get on or off subway trains by the year 2051 if there was an operational station.

They noted the projected volume of passengers is roughly equivalent to what’s currently seen at Wilson, Eglinton West and Wellesley stations.

It was also projected there will be an increase to roughly 5,700 jobs in the Yonge Street and Cummer Avenue vicinity.

The Yonge North Subway Extension project, scheduled to open in 2030, was one of four major transportation initiatives announced by the Ford government in 2019. The original proposal called for a station at Cummer Avenue along with stops at Steeles Avenue, Clark Avenue (east of Promenade Shopping Centre in Vaughan), Royal Orchard Boulevard (south of Highway 407 in Vaughan), Highway 7 and Langstaff GO station, and High Tech Road just north of Richmond Hill Centre.

In 2021, an initial business case and budget constraints saw the expansion scaled back. Stops at Clark Avenue and Royal Orchard Boulevard in York Region were eventually added back in by the government, but Cummer station was the only one left out.

As a result, there will be a two-kilometre stretch without a subway stop in between Finch and Steeles stations. That’s roughly the distance between York Mills and Sheppard-Yonge stations, or Sheppard-Yonge and Finch stations.

“I don’t want to compete with York region and I’m not saying they shouldn’t have their subway station(s), but we envision a future where transit is a primary form of transportation and not building the station I think will really challenge the future of this community,” Cheng said.

“If you look south of here, North York Centre station was built a similar distance, similar population surrounding it, and it is now the heart of Willowdale. It’s such an important station and people rely on it to get downtown.”

City of Toronto officials estimated the cost of building a station would be between $445 million and $470 million. Without adding the needed infrastructure for a station as tunnel-boring machines pass through the area in the future, it will become much more difficult and costly to add a station later on.

Cheng said it’s estimated there will be around 13,000 people eventually living near the intersection as a result of future development.

“We don’t want them on buses because that’s going to be very busy on the road, we don’t want them driving, so let’s get them on a subway,” she said.

There are discussions underway, Cheng noted, to see if there is federal funding that could be secured to help the City of Toronto deal with the shortfall.

In the letter to the City of Toronto, provincial officials pointed to hundreds of millions of dollars provided for one-time transit safety and recovery initiatives, three years of operating funding for the Eglinton Crosstown and Finch West LRT lines, money (dependent on federal funding) for replacing Line 2 subway trains, and uploading the Gardiner and Don Valley expressways

Meanwhile, the Yonge North Subway Extension project runs through the provincial ridings of Willowdale and Thornhill. Both areas are represented by Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario MPPs.

Cheng said she and the community members are going to “raise a ruckus as we have to do” to push for the station to get built.

“It’s for the next generation that are growing up in this neighbourhood,” she said.

“I am prepared to take this all the way to the next provincial election and make sure voters vote for someone that supports Cummer station.”