Critics want to know what the justification for building that track is, when it is likely to cost billions of dollars to tunnel along Eglinton Ave. W. During the campaign, Tory at first avoided the tunnel question. He then admitted a tunnel would be needed, though his campaign never provided a cost breakdown.
So in come the consultants, in this case a firm called HDR, to study the western spur. That work is now complete. What’s noticeably absent are the costs. But it’s not because they're not available.
I spoke to chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat this week, who confirmed the actual HDR report submitted to the city contains “high-level” costs for the western spur options. So, what are they? Keesmaat won’t tell. She told me to take it up with the city manager’s office.
Before I called Keesmaat, I did exchange emails with Peter Notaro, who works in city manager’s office as director, corporate intergovernmental and agency relations (He's the one that signed off on the SmartTrack update). I asked him if I could have a copy of the actual HDR report. What the city posted is basically a summary of the work HDR did. It’s like providing a footnote, but not access to the primary document.
Notaro wrote back: “City staff are still reviewing the HDR report. We will be releasing information from the report as part of the public consultations planned later this fall.” I wrote back to ask Notaro what exactly about a paid-for consultant’s report needed “reviewing” and whether they planned to change the work submitted. Notaro never responded (I sent a follow-up email asking if he ever planned to respond. He did not respond).
Keesmaat said the report would be made public ahead of public consultations, but not this fall. Because of "glitches" in getting the ridership numbers, those consultations have now been delayed until January.
The mayor’s office says the HDR report has yet to be completed. It’s true that the city summary explains they are waiting on the ridership numbers – projections for how many people might ride SmartTrack at peak hours – before "finalizing" the HDR report. But those “high-level” costs won’t change because of ridership projections.
“There’s a lot of talk around the building about a report that you’re making reference to that has to do with some of the engineering and cost-related aspects of SmartTrack on the west side,” Tory told me at a press availability this week when I asked about HDR and the costs. “I have seen no document, no draft, no summary, no report.”
Tory said he couldn’t provide any numbers from the report - a report on the transit plan that formed the cornerstone of his campaign and is his number one priority for this term - “because I don’t have any.”
But the city’s chief planner says the numbers are available.
The end result is this: The city’s top officials refuse to let you know how much the most expensive part of SmartTrack is estimated to cost.
