Mayor John Tory (open John Tory's policard) appears willing to change the council-approved route for the controversial Scarborough subway in order to make it work with his SmartTrack ambitions.

But changes to the current plan could dramatically increase costs — in one scenario by at least $1 billion.

Though he remains committed to building a subway instead of an LRT, Tory is keeping an open mind on where that subway would go, how it would get there and how many stops it might include.

Tory’s main problem stems from concerns that his heavy-rail SmartTrack and the planned three-stop subway — running north on McCowan Rd. — would cannibalize each other’s ridership.

SmartTrack, which Tory largely staked his election campaign on and which hinges on the use of existing GO rail in the east, can’t be moved. The subway, which he also promised to build, can. At what cost, however?

Because of how close together the two proposed lines are, city staff expanded their subway study area east to include other possible routes, something later encouraged behind-the-scenes by Tory’s staff. Those routes, following public consultation, will likely be the subject of debate later this year with final approval up to council.

Officially, Tory’s office says it would be premature for him to weigh in on any of the routes ahead of a staff report expected as early as July.

“The mayor’s support for building the Scarborough subway is unwavering. Once a route is selected and the necessary preparatory work has been done, the mayor wants to get on with building it as soon as possible,” Tory’s spokesperson Amanda Galbraith said in an email.

But earlier this year, the mayor’s staff seemed fixated on pushing the subway east.

On Jan. 28, Tory’s director of policy Stephen Johnson, chief of staff Chris Eby and the city’s chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat discussed a public presentation on the subway study to be posted the next day.

That back-and-forth, which played out in emails obtained by the Star through a freedom of information request, focused on one particular map showing nine possible alignments for the subway.

“The route option that hits Kingston Road needs to show a station there. That is essential,” Johnson told Keesmaat.

Galbraith said a Kingston Rd. stop was “raised in the context of the expanded study area and the view that it should extend as far east as Kingston Rd.” She pointed out that staff ultimately decided against that suggestion, though it’s not clear why.

When the map was published in January, it showed a Markham Rd. corridor that would see a subway travel east on Eglinton Ave. and north on Markham to Ellesmere Rd. before doubling back to connect with the Scarborough Town Centre.

One crucial point, transit experts argue — and Tory himself acknowledged during an interview with Steve Paikin on TVO’s The Agenda last week — is the need for any line to travel through Scarborough Town Centre as a major hub for riders. It is one of the biggest draws for the ridership used to justify the switch to a subway.

But in order to build a station there, any subway east of McCowan Rd. would have to double back.

Though it has yet to be spelled out by staff, a Markham Rd. alignment appears to cover, at minimum, close to 11 kilometres.

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Typically, the price tag for building subways has been said to be at least $300 million per kilometre — which doesn’t take into account additional costs of building multiple stations and other expenses.

The three-stop McCowan option, which was presented and approved by council in October 2013 at a cost of $3.56 billion, runs 7.6 kilometres.

The cost of tunnelling some three additional kilometres for the Markham Rd. option could be close to $1 billion.

The province made clear in 2013 that they were unwilling to foot any additional costs for a subway when council switched plans from a fully funded, seven-stop light rail line. The federal government later pledged $660 million to build the subway extension planned for McCowan Rd.

Since then, the city has also been collecting a special tax levy for the subway to pay its share of the costs.

Ahead of the staff report, it’s unclear what else could drive up costs of the alternative routes and whether the city could find the extra money in order to complete the subway for 2023 as planned.

It’s also not apparent whether the lengthier subway option could make do with just three station stops and whether that route would attract the same number of potential riders.

In 2013, the TTC first said the ridership was 9,500 per peak hour — a standard calculation for planning transit. That number was later changed in a city staff report to 14,000 — just outside the necessary ridership to justify a subway, widely accepted as 15,000.

Some argue it would be redundant to build both SmartTrack and a subway line because they both serve the same number of riders going the same way in the same amount of time.

Comparing the calculations by Tory’s campaign team and the TTC, it would be possible to get from Kennedy Station to Sheppard Ave. in 10 minutes on both lines. Agincourt GO station, used by Tory’s SmartTrack and a hypothetical McCowan and Sheppard subway station, would be just two kilometres apart.

TTC CEO Andy Byford acknowledged there is a “risk” to building both SmartTrack and the McCowan Rd. subway option side by side. He said he supports the city staff decision to expand the study area.

A recent study co-authored by University of Toronto Scarborough professors Andre Sorensen and Paul Hess that looked at options for Scarborough transit and the surrounding neighbourhoods found the “worst case scenario” — a decision that would be “irresponsible” — would be to build both SmartTrack and the subway extension as proposed.

“I think that with SmartTrack seeming like it might go ahead and being the mayor’s preferred option then we really have to reopen the debate about Scarborough subway,” Sorensen said in an interview. “I really don’t think it makes sense to have both of those side by side.”

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