So it seems Stepgate does indeed have legs.

Which would you prefer: A series of 10 wood steps built to the Ontario Building Code, with legal railings and set-in concrete footings warrantied for at least two years, courtesy of a private contractor for $3,000?

Or seven concrete steps with a metal railing built for the city’s Parks, Forestry and Recreation department for a grand total of $70,000?

The first quote came Wednesday morning from Steve Steinberg of Newmarket’s Fence & Deck Centre, in response to the Toronto Sun exclusive in which Parks and Rec claimed a small staircase of eight steps in Etobicoke’s Tom Riley Park would cost anywhere from $65,000 to $150,000.

As reported exclusively in theSun, instead of waiting for Parks and Rec to get its act together - seeing as seniors were repeatedly falling trying to manoeuvre down a hill to access the Horizons Community Garden in the park - 73-year-old Adi Astl built the steps on June 22 in about 12 hours for a mere $550.

While Steinberg said Astl’s steps could be unsafe, he admires his intent.

“That’s ridiculous,” says Steinberg of the Parks and Rec estimate, noting even an elaborate set of concrete steps would cost $10,000 max.

“No wonder the city is drowning in debt and needs to raise revenue, if they would need to spend $65,000 on a $5,000 job!”

That’s precisely the point. But I’ll come back to that shortly.

The second price is what Parks and Rec based its estimate on for the Tom Riley Park staircase.

This was the actual cost to install a seven-step concrete (and I dare say ugly) staircase down from Millwood Road into Leaside Park.

According to Matthew Cutler, spokesman for Parks and Rec, the $70,000 included $25,000 for the actual concrete steps and railing, $25,000 for landscaping and another $20,000 for project management.

To his credit Mayor John Tory said Wednesday he wouldn’t accept even the $65,000 - an “excessive” amount which is “completely out of whack” - and has asked staff to go back to the drawing board.

But then he got off on that tangent he always seems to because he accepts staff at their word (a very dangerous practice), noting there is an entrance to the Etobicoke park off of Bloor St. (a path that is accessible) barely 200 feet away from the area in question.

I’ll bet staff neglected to tell him that the accessible path is, shall we say, rather inaccessible at the moment considering the Toronto Parking Authority has dug up its lot.

But that’s not the point at all.

I can guarantee you that Stepgate is not an isolated incident at City Hall. It’s a regular practice across all departments, judging from the reaction from union members to the story Wednesday.

The $65,000-$150,000 stairs may be a small-ticket item in the grand scheme of things. But what happens when we’re talking projects that involve tens of millions of dollars in road, bridge and watermain repairs?

The city also has some serious issues with its procurement practices, as councillor Justin Di Ciano, whose ward includes Tom Riley Park, noted Wednesday.

Add to that union wages, which are easily 13% higher than what a comparable labourer makes in the private sector, an extremely bloated bureaucracy in the parks department (there are supervisors upon supervisors), the at least 30% spent on consultants on every project and it’s little wonder the cost of projects are “out of whack” (to use Tory’s words) and rarely done in a timely manner.

The question the mayor should be addressing is: What are you going to do about it?

In the nearly three years he’s been in office, Tory has proven himself loathe to upset the status quo.

But Stepgate proves one thing: Tory’s predecessor Rob Ford was 100% right about The Gravy Train - even though his opponents went out of their way to discredit him, repeatedly.

SLevy @postmedia.com