In the next few days, work crews will begin tearing up the intersection of Finch Ave. West and Martin Grove — deep in the heart of Ford Nation – in order to shift some buried Enbridge gas lines.
This isn’t a City project; however. It’s the
latest chapter of the Finch West LRT construction project, which has been in the ground for many months, with a great deal of work underway. As of late January, 2018, in fact, Metrolinx had spent $236.3 million on the line, or approximately a fifth of the 2010 budget of $1.2 billion, according to agency spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins.
Remember this non-trivial figure (roughly equivalent to a 10% property tax hike) when Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford begins yelling about infrastructure and transit in Greater Toronto. This seemingly inevitable gong-show will rumble through the election campaign, and almost certainly feature threats to wrest the subway system away from the City of Toronto as well as ice or cancel approved LRT projects and the Relief Line, that subway tailor-made, we’ll be assured, for Toronto’s champagne-swilling elites...