Open this photo in gallery:
Metrolinx CEO Michael Lindsay says the price tag so far for the Ontario Line is at about $34-billion.Carlos Osorio/The Canadian Press
The price tag so far for the Ontario Line subway is at about $34-billion, which is triple the government’s original cost projection, the head of Ontario’s regional transit agency said Tuesday.
Metrolinx president and CEO Michael Lindsay confirmed the dollar figure in response to a reporter’s question and said the final total will be higher than that, once another contract for elevated guideways is secured.
“The Ontario Line budget that was last reported is under pressure,” he said.
When Premier Doug Ford’s government announced its plan for the subway line to run from Exhibition Place to east Toronto, through downtown, it pegged the cost at $10.9-billion.
Toronto’s Ontario Line could open later than 2031 target, Metrolinx says
When the project was announced in 2019, it was a different time, Lindsay said, and since then, trade uncertainty and supply chain shocks are driving up costs for various major projects.
“It is absolutely true to say that the direct costs of these projects continue – whether it is fighter jets or transit or hospital or whatever it is – to go up,” he said.
“We take it very seriously, though, at Metrolinx that we need to do everything we can to try to condition those costs and make our expenditures as efficient as they can be for taxpayers.”
Metrolinx uses a competitive process for its contracts and scrutinizes line items in order to make spending efficient, he said.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles said she is concerned that large transit projects consistently rise and are not delivered on time.
“Unfortunately, this again is a pattern we continue to see of these budgets that just continue to grow out of control,” she said.
Lindsay said earlier this year that the Ontario Line should open by the early 2030s, potentially later than the 2031 target. It was initially supposed to open in 2027.
The line will run more than 15 kilometres, include 15 new stations and accommodate nearly 400,000 trips a day.