Ontario Line subway project price tag increases by billions of dollars
Global News
The cost of the Ford government's signature Ontario Line subway project has increased again, with estimates now sitting north of $27 billion.
The cost of delivering Premier Doug Ford’s signature subway project has ballooned by billions of dollars, Global News can reveal, as construction work in Toronto continues.
A Metrolinx rapid transit project report prepared for late June shows the Ontario Line is now set to cost taxpayers $27.2 billion to build and operate, a 43 per cent increase from two years ago. The project has, so far, cost taxpayers $5 billion in construction costs, with almost $600 million spent between January and April this year.
The Ontario Line, which is set to run from the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place, was unveiled by Premier Doug Ford in 2019 as part of a $28.9-billion subway expansion plan.
The route is designed to act as a relief valve for the city’s Yonge/University subway line, offering an alternate way to get from north to south through new neighbourhoods. It broke ground in March 2022, with construction visibly progressing around Toronto and a planned completion date of 2031.
“This line will be transformative for residents in Toronto reducing crowding on existing subway lines and putting nearly 50,000 jobs within a 45 minute commute,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Transportation said.
“As contracts are awarded for this project, they will continue to be publicly posted. Initial projects costs are generally capital construction costs only.
“The contracts awarded between the November board report and the June board report include cost categories relevant to the entire project as a whole, including 30-year operations and maintenance, infrastructure lifecycle maintenance and property acquisitions.”
When the project was first unveiled by Premier Ford, in 2019, the province pegged the cost of building the line at $10.9 billion, a number the government said was only for construction and did not capture the money needed to run the line for 30 years.
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