Provincial transit agency Metrolinx found two of the Ontario government’s priority rail projects scored poorly on key measures in an economic analysis, but the agency says they should still be built.

Business cases released Friday by Metrolinx, the Crown agency overseeing transit in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, determined both the three-stop Scarborough subway extension and the Eglinton West LRT would incur costs that significantly outweigh their benefits and don’t meet the agency’s threshold for economic viability.

Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government has designated both projects as priorities in his $28.5-billion transit expansion plan, which also includes the Ontario Line and Yonge North subway extension.

Responding to the reports, Christina Salituro, a spokesperson for Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney, said in an email Friday the government is “fully committed to our four priority projects, including the Eglinton West Extension and three-stop Scarborough Subway Extension.”

She said the communities they would serve “have waited far too long for better access to rapid transit” and the business cases “show that both projects will deliver significant relief to commuters travelling in the GTA.”

In a statement, Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins said the projects shouldn’t be judged solely by their cost-benefit ratios. She said the reports represent “a purposefully modest baseline that I am confident will improve” as the projects are further developed.

Metrolinx president and CEO Phil Verster said reports indicated the subway and LRT extensions would “deliver significant benefits by “expanding transit capacity and cutting travel times.”

But critics seized on the reports as evidence the province’s plans are deficient.

Coun. Josh Matlow (Ward 12, Toronto-St. Paul’s) issued a statement claiming Metrolinx was “finally admitting that the Scarborough subway does not provide good value for money to residents who need transit now.”

Matlow, who has long supported building a seven-stop Scarborough LRT instead of the subway extension, said Metrolinx had “released the first public report that confirms what academics and transit experts have been saying for the past decade — that the ridership and large geography of Scarborough won’t be well served by a three-stop subway.”

The new report determined the Scarborough project, which would extend the TTC’s Line 2 subway eight kilometres from Kennedy station to Sheppard Avenue and McCowan Road, would have total costs, including construction and operating and maintenance, of up to $6 billion over 60 years. Over the same period it would provide $2.8 billion in economic benefits.

Its maximum benefit-cost ratio would be 0.66. Metrolinx’s guidelines say that to be considered economically viable a transit project should have a benefit-cost ratio of at least 1.

Metrolinx’s preferred option for the Eglinton West LRT, which would be an extension of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT from Mount Dennis toward Pearson Airport, performed even worse, with a benefit-cost ratio of just 0.34. It would have total costs of $4.9 billion and provide $1.7 billion in benefits.

The Scarborough subway extension has been a divisive project for years. The city previously planned to replace the aging Scarborough RT with a seven-stop LRT, but in 2013 voted to build a three-stop subway extension instead. As costs for the project rose, in 2016 Mayor John Tory supported revised plans to delete two stations and build a single-stop extension to the Scarborough Town Centre.

Premier Ford vowed during his successful 2018 election campaign to revert to the three-stop plan.

The new Metrolinx business case didn’t compare the Scarborough subway project to the seven-stop LRT plan or the existing SRT, rather it compared it to a scenario under which the SRT was decommissioned and the TTC replaced it only with bus service.

According to the report, the three-stop extension, with stations at Lawrence Avenue, Scarborough Town Centre and Sheppard Avenue, would attract 105,000 daily boardings, and about 12,000 net new daily riders in the morning peak hour. It’s scheduled to open in 2029 or 2030.

The City of Toronto had also previously studied plans for the Eglinton West LRT, and concluded that building the line above ground was the best option. However, Ford’s government favours a more expensive plan to build the line below ground.

The business case released Friday examined four options for the 9.2-kilometre section of the line within Toronto’s borders: one mostly above-ground route, and three variations of mostly below-ground alignments that would have between two and nine stops.

According to Metrolinx, the best option is a mostly below-ground route with six stops in Toronto.

That version of the Eglinton West LRT would have 37,000 daily boardings, attract 13,000 net new daily riders, and provide the “best overall improvements in network connectivity, corridor travel experience and livable and sustainable communities.” It would open by 2028.

This is not the first time that Metrolinx officials have found the Scarborough subway is not worth building.

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An internal report, marked as “draft” and dated September 2013, earlier obtained by the Star through a freedom of information request, concluded a three-stop Scarborough subway — the same project being considered today — was “not a worthwhile use of money” compared to the alternative seven-stop LRT.

At that time, it found the benefit-cost ratio was “between 0.3 and 0.6 to 1.”

That study was never published. At that time, Toronto city council was considering switching from a seven-stop LRT paid for by the province to replace the aging SRT to a subway pushed by then-mayor Rob Ford and others.

Metrolinx’s “mini benefits case analysis,” as it was labelled, said projected future ridership would fall well below the capacity of a subway, reduce access for commuters by offering fewer stops than the LRT while only “marginally” increasing travel times for riders.

With files from Jennifer Pagliaro

Ben Spurr is a Toronto-based reporter covering transportation. Reach him by email at bspurr@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @BenSpurr

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