Original Ontario Line price only didn’t include all costs: Metrolinx CEO
Global News
The 15-kilometre transit line has ballooned in price from the original $10.9 billion for construction to $27.2 billion to build, maintain and operate the trains for 30 years.
The initial price tag of Premier Doug Ford’s signature Ontario Line project left out key expenses, according to the head of the province’s transit planning agency, that would eventually double the cost of constructing and operating the transit line.
The 15-kilometre transit line, announced by the Progressive Conservative government in 2019, has ballooned in price from the original $10.9 billion for construction to $27.2 billion to build, maintain and operate the trains for 30 years.
On Monday, as Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster broke down the reasons behind the cost increase, he also included a rare admission: that the province doesn’t provide taxpayers with the full price tag up front.
“It is the practice in Ontario whereby when projects are announced, only the construction costs are announced,” Verster said during an unrelated transit announcement. “The cost in 2019, the $10.9 billion, was only for construction cost.”
Vester said the initial projection was “half or less than half” of what the total project would eventually cost once other necessary items such as land acquisition, design and project management.
“All of those costs are costs that are developed after the project is announced and so that initial announcement is only for construction costs,” Verster said.
Since then, Verster said, the province awarded $7 billion in contracts to maintain and operate the line over 30 years, while the costs of construction have nearly doubled – something Verster blames on the pandemic-related inflationary increases.
The Ford government has been under scrutiny over the escalating price tag with critics accusing the government of not being upfront with taxpayers and being “allergic to accountability.”
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