Tory says Downtown Relief Line won’t happen without provincial money

With the Scarborough subway extension moving forward, Mayor John Tory is now firmly setting his sights on the Downtown Relief Line.

But he said it won’t happen without help from the province.

Standing on the crowded southbound platform of Yonge Station during the Monday morning rush, Tory said the Downtown Relief Line is a top transit priority.

“At peak times in our rush hours, this station is overcrowded and is over its capacity. It’s packed every day of the week. It’s bursting at the seams as riders come both down the Yonge Street line and across the Bloor-Danforth line,” Tory said.

“This subway needs to be built. We know the urgency will only grow.”

Approximately 700,000 people ride Line 1 and 500,000 people ride the Line 2 every day. Of those, 400,000 riders get on or off trains at Yonge-Bloor station every day.

“That ridership is only going to grow as the city grows and as the surrounding regions grows. Toronto’s subway system needs to expand – there’s no question about that,” said Tory.

The mayor said the downtown relief line will take pressure off both major subway lines and ease congestion at Yonge-Bloor.

TTC CEO Andy Byford insists that the relief line, over all other TTC projects, is the highest priority.

“I’ve said, since the day I got here, that, in my professional opinion, the relief line is number one priority for the TTC. Whatever we do, we must provide relief for this key interchange at Yonge and Bloor,” Byford explained.

“This station will be saturated, overwhelmed, unable to cope by 2031 if a relief line is not in place by then.”

The mayor said the only way the project will push forward is for the provincial government to pay up – especially after denying Toronto the permission to install road tolls on the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway. The money from those tolls was to go directly to transit funding.

“The future of transit expansion in Toronto rests squarely on the province of Ontario,” he said.

Tory said the faster the funding from all three governments is approved, the quicker the relief line can be built.

“It is really, virtually, impossible to proceed with this project without the partnership of the province, given the magnitude of the project.”

In response, Ontario Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca was quick to point out that the province is already ponying up $150-million to Metrolinx for the project.

“It is important to remember that we were first at the table last June when we announced that we are providing $150 million so that Metrolinx, Toronto, and the Toronto Transit Commission can work collaboratively to begin planning and business case analysis work on the Downtown Relief Line project,” he explained in a statement.

“This is $150 million that is already being used to get this project shovel-ready.”

Del Duca added that the Wynne government “has done more to invest in transit” both in Toronto and across Ontario than any previous government – including the investment of billions of dollars in other transit projects such as Tory’s SmartTrack plan, the Eglinton Crosstown LRT and the Scarborough subway.

“What the mayor refuses to acknowledge is that while previous federal governments chose not to invest, Toronto has always had a stable provincial funding partner at the table, providing Toronto with billions for important local transit projects,” he said.

“We are not going to play political games with transit. We will be at the table, and have always been at the table, when it comes to investing in Toronto and we look forward to continuing to work with the city and our federal partners to continue delivering.”

The last estimate for the downtown relief line was $6.8-billion.

However, Tory noted that the estimated cost is only in the early planning stages.