During a period of unprecedented affordability challenges, there’s nothing more important than the responsible financial stewardship of city resources and your tax dollars. In an era of mayor Chow’s record-breaking tax increases — nearly 10% last year, with promises of significant hikes to come, it’s even more imperative that City Hall is demonstrating value for every one of those precious public dollars.
That’s why the city’s plan to spend $150 million on a two-kilometre cycling and pedestrian trail connection is particularly egregious — it represents the type of careless approach to budgeting that sees massive cost overruns signed off with a shrug.
This didn’t start out as a $150-million dollar bike lane. A lack of oversight, ballooning cost overruns, and administrative fees have resulted in the costs escalating by more than six times the initial estimate. In 2016, the project cost was tabled at $23 million as part of the adjacent Metrolinx rail corridor work.
Just last year, Vancouver Island planned an active transportation trail along an operating rail line, spanning over 289 kilometers with complicated terrain and 50 bridges. That project was priced at just $595,823 per kilometre. So why is Toronto spending $150 million for a two-kilometre trail with four bridges?
In 2010, the UP Express was built along the same corridor for $20.4 million per kilometre. Even when considering inflation, labour costs, and materials, how is it possible that a walking and cycling path costs nearly four times the amount of a state-of-the-art transit connection?
Rather than signing blank cheques with taxpayer’s money, the mayor ought to be asking the obvious questions most Torontonians are grappling with: Why has the project cost increased more than six times the original estimate? What steps have been taken to find savings and efficiencies? Are there other alternative designs, alignments or construction methods? Could we get better pricing with different contractors?
At the end of this fact-finding mission, better options may have presented themselves, or you might conclude that the responsible thing to do would be to shelve the project until more affordable alternatives are available or the city’s financial position improves.
When the mayor was asked about due diligence undertaken with respect to this project, she placed the accountability with other levels of government. According to the mayor, “the federal government would have done the due diligence in sorting out whether it’s good value for money.” But the feds are forking up only 15% of the project or $23 million, while city taxpayers are on the hook for $125 million. Why would the mayor rely on the federal government to undertake a value for money exercise when the city is funding the vast majority of the project?
If the mayor wasn’t spending $150 million on a cycling and walking trail, what else could that money be used for? Well, for starters, it represents more than a 3% property tax increase. It could pay for two badly needed community centres. It could fund upgrades or retrofits to libraries, public pools, or parks. It could provide immediate funding for supportive housing to help eliminate the encampments that have consumed our parks. The $150 million is more than double the cost of the provincial bailout to speed up the Gardiner Expressway reconstruction. But instead, mayor Chow’s budget has prioritized a two-kilometre pathway at the staggering cost of $75,000 per metre.
And that’s what this is really all about — a lack of leadership, prioritization, and accountability. This project is a nice to have, it’s not a need to have — and certainly not at any cost. Real leadership would be stepping up to ask the tough questions and demand answers. Prioritization would be a careful evaluation of competing interests and deciding where our scarce resources are best spent. And accountability would be taking responsibility to correct the problem, rather than pointing the finger at funding partners.
We need more value for money and less cost overruns. Unfortunately, mayor Chow’s $150-million cycling path offers neither.
-Councillor Brad Bradford represents Ward 19 Beaches-East York