Toronto needs a ‘plate of spaghetti’ transit system but costs are skyrocketing: report
Global News
A new report from the Toronto Region Board of Trade found the current cost of new transit in the city averages more than $700 million per kilometre.
The cost of expanding Toronto’s aging transit system has skyrocketed in recent decades, according to a new report, with the price per kilometre of new subway and light rail track ballooning.
A new report from the Toronto Region Board of Trade found the current cost of new transit in the city averages more than $700 million per kilometre — on par with other North American cities but far more than European equivalents.
The report calls on both the Ford government and Metrolinx to learn lessons around the world to reduce the cost of building new transit as both engage in a massive expansion currently underway in Toronto and the surrounding area.
The board has implored the government to ensure lines currently under construction or earmarked for future plans are built efficiently. The board hopes prices can be brought closer to the $300 million per kilometre costs some European cities have faced, compared to higher spending this side of the Atlantic.
“You can’t afford not to build this, but you don’t want to be in a position where you can’t afford to build it,” Giles Gherson, president and CEO of the Toronto Region Board of Trade told Global News.
The organization’s new report — titled the Price of Progress — tracked costs in Toronto and across the world to build transit.
It found costs to build in Toronto from the mid-1970s to mid-1990s were steady at around $103 million per kilometre in today’s money.
That jumped with the 2002 completion of the Sheppard subway at $234 million per kilometre, rising again to $443 million per kilometre for the Yonge-University subway extension into York Region.
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