The announcement is $27 million in funding for the Relief Line design work. Hussen was just there as a representative for Amarjeet Sohi, who's in Ottawa with Trudeau for some Federation of Canadian Municipalities event. And Del Duca is there because he probably doesn't have anyone to sell used cars to today.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
If you aren't ready, don't pretend that's what you are doing. Everyone can come up with money for engineering work that lead nowhere, we don't need a press event for this bull.

AoD
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Indeed, there's many completed plans on the books never built. There's also an onus on the City to come up with a plan that *can* be committed to. There's many that may be on the City's planning agenda, and shouldn't be funded. SSE immediately comes to mind.

What would be sensible and apt is run an independent business case by a third party and/or private investor(s) to critique a plan and propose how to fund it, if at all.

There'd be a hell of a lot more money to build what's really necessary if such were the case.
 
The Toronto (municipal) contribution was $27M, so under PTIF the Federal contribution can only match that.

Per recent City Council direction, the next stop on the Relief Line design trail isn't until Q4 of 2019. Makes no sense to borrow money for the whole thing and stash it away before then. Plenty of opportunities to announce, er, take credit for, portions of that along the way. Yes, it's deferring a key decision and passing the buck to some later government, but that's how things work, it seems.

- Paul
 
amnesiajune said:
You can't make a funding commitment when you barely know the amount of funding needed.
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Really? That never stopped them when it was politically convenient.

I agree that it's not fiscally prudent to make such commitments when the price is unknown, but let's not pretend that the government would not have committed to the Relief Line if it was politically beneficial for them to.
 
steveintoronto said:
Indeed, there's many completed plans on the books never built. There's also an onus on the City to come up with a plan that *can* be committed to. There's many that may be on the City's planning agenda, and shouldn't be funded. SSE immediately comes to mind.

What would be sensible and apt is run an independent business case by a third party and/or private investor(s) to critique a plan and propose how to fund it, if at all.

There'd be a hell of a lot more money to build what's really necessary if such were the case.
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Ugh. As long as you mean that money stays in the heavily underinvested massive suburb of Scarborough and we review the current plan by a "third party". But I doubt that what you mean. Listen I feel bad your DRL isn't funded. Yet. It will be, but your idea that you can scrape the heavily populated inner suburbs of growth is not sensible at all. Nor is it even a reasonable idea Politically which should be obvious. The City has been starved of capital, but we need to promote and support all areas of the City to move forward. Otherwise we are not yelling at those that can really help, and we are wasting time and money in the attempt to kill others plans, and not helping to improve them.
 
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OneCity said:
Listen I feel bad your DRL isn't funded.
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I don't feel bad that you haven't a clue on what I prefer since anytime I mention it, the post vapourizes and I get banned for a week.

I think the Province *will* fund this, and completely with a Fed share in it. It might even appeal to the Infrastructure Bank, which ostensibly will be up and running before the end of this year. And as part of a regional system, so that when announced within the next year, it will appeal to regional voters as well as Toronto ones. Discussions on this are underway at other sites, and it makes a lot of sense to some of us following the latest thinking in other jurisdictions in other nations.

The City will be sidelined...and left to plan strip malls. There's a Scarborough specialty right there...

"Eglinton Crosstown" ring a bell for construction and funding model?
 
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steveintoronto said:
I don't feel bad that you haven't a clue on what I prefer since anytime I mention it, the post vapourizes and I get banned for a week.

I think the Province *will* fund this, and completely with a Fed share in it. And as part of a regional system, so that when announced within the next year, it will appeal to regional voters as well as Toronto ones. Discussions on this are underway at other sites, and it makes a lot of sense to some of us following the latest thinking in other jurisdictions in other nations.

The City will be sidelined...and left to plan strip malls. There's a Scarborough specialty right there...
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You make some good points and recommendations that I don't take issue with and I know you feel strongly about your opinion, so I respect that. I just took issue with the comment that we should cancel the SSE to fund downtown projects. That is not happening, nor should it. As you say the DRL will be funded and Scarborough has seen enough lack of public investment. The approach to what gets built, how its funded can and should be improved but for now that's not reality and will take decades to even make baby steps there. The best plan of attack given the urgent nature here is to go after those that can actually help before money continues to be spent in other areas across the GTA and help Toronto get moving across the board.
 
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OneCity said:
I just took issue with the comment that we should cancel the SSE to fund downtown projects. That is not happening, nor should it.
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Fair enough, thank you for that. I'm dodging the moderator as much as I am you on this. It seems to be an incredibly sore point for a 'moderated' forum, but I'd like to make it clear that *ALL* projects should be run past third party analysis. If they pass the various sniff tests, they will *attract* funding. If they fail on the return per investment case, then governments can still decide to push ahead on the basis of less tangible benefits, but also with all taxpayer funding.

Do I feel that SSE and RL make an investment case as planned? Not even close. Should the need be satiated? Absolutely, but not by City Hall. They can barely be trusted to get a bike lane right, let alone build massive infrastructure.

It might yet transpire that City Planning conclude that "RL is far larger than we can handle". But highly unlikely, it would put them out of a job, except for working at a strip joint...whoops, mall.

Both RL and SSE have to be done as part of a much larger plan, and the City is way out of its depth on both. (Edit to Add: So was Metrolinx on the RL proposal, using incredibly dated and blinkered reference. ML is now reviewing that. Vastly different observations may come out of the newer better funded study)

And to buttress my point on "the City is out of its depth", one word: SmartTrack.

Still not a word on the City's share of the stations planned. They'll never happen. And it's more than just Tory. Council voted on this, and have had a chance to kill it many times. I think the proposal has merit, but absolutely not the way presented.
 
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Just up at the CBC: (I trust this is on-topic?)
Mayor John Tory was at Queen subway station — a potential starting point for the future downtown relief line — on Friday morning to reiterate a call for the province to commit to matching federal transit investments.

Tory continues to push the province to commit to more capital funding for the potential relief line, which is still in the planning phases and isn't expect to be open until 2031.

"We need the commitments, hard commitments, on the money to build it," Tory told CBC Toronto on Thursday, following a meeting with other big city mayors from across Canada.

Queen's Park has provided some $150 million to help study the relief line, but has said repeatedly that it's too soon to commit money to the project.

Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca reiterated that funding commitment on Friday, saying more planning work needs to be done before the province gives more to the project.

Ahmed Hussen, the federal immigration minister, highlighted some $27 million Ottawa has already provided for the project, and touted the major infrastructure investments coming from the federal government in the coming years.

Tory said he's confident the federal government will be providing its share of infrastructure money for the relief line and other transit projects in the city.
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/relief-line-news-conference-1.4142821

"Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca (says) more planning work needs to be done before the province gives more to the project."

And that's the catch phrase.
 
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