Say what?

The private sector-built Eglinton Crosstown LRT is running over budget and behind schedule? Impossible.

Our politicians turned over the project to the wise and efficient private-sector folks to show us how to build a rail line because, y’know, the TTC and their unionized government workers can’t do anything right. The criticism wasn’t that explicit but the message was the same.

How many speeches extolled the virtues of the Public-Private Partnership (P3) controlled by the private guys. Turn it over to them, agree on costs and date of delivery and it is the business people who are on the hook for cost overruns, we’ve been told repeatedly.

Delays? Unlikely to happen, said the chorus. Because penalties kick in, the private sector guys and gals are mindful of the disincentives and are motivated to stick to the schedule. The taxpayer is protected.

Not exactly, it turns out.

As the Toronto area embarks on one of the largest, costliest, most extensive periods of transit building in history, reality doesn’t match promise.

It’s not that the private-sector guys are scoundrels or wastrels; it’s just that they are not immune to the stickiest and most difficult issues that the TTC had to overcome in its time of transit construction. Delays and cost-overruns are endemic to large-scale transit construction projects.

Construction on the Crosstown, running 19 kilometres along Eglinton Avenue from Black Creek Drive in the old city of York and east to Kennedy Road in Scarborough, began in 2011. It was to open in this year. Five years ago, opening day was pushed back a year to September 2021. Now, internal documents, obtained by The Star’s Ben Spurr, project potential delays to May 2022.

Taxpayers have already paid an extra $237 million to the consortium (including EllisDon, SNC-Lavalin, Aecon, ACS-Dragados) to settle a previous claim that the private-sector firms were not responsible for the earlier delays. Who do you expect will pick up the new projected cost overruns, totalling $332 million?

Always the taxpayer.

Remember that the next time our politicos or board of trade or business interests wax on about how the city should turn over these projects to the wise men who run big business. Their claims rose to a crescendo during the disastrous delays and cost overruns on the Spadina line extension out to Vaughan. As the manager of the project, the TTC took the brunt of the criticism as the transit agency had to return to city council asking for more money to cover unexpected costs and claims from private-sector partners. Few remembered that the TTC delivered the Sheppard Subway essentially on budget and on time.

Following the Spadina subway extension mess, the TTC as a transit construction leader was over. Decades of great work and global stature melted away. Toronto city planners took over critical functions, leaving the transit body on the sidelines.

When the TTC started the early design work on the Scarborough subway extension, some city councillors demanded, naively in retrospect, that the P3 process begin immediately to insulate the city from cost-overruns.

Now, the province is the transit-building leader and its agency, Metrolinx, performs the TTC functions. Queen’s Park gushes about Infrastructure Ontario and Metrolinx holding the reins while the private firms trot along. And still we have delays and costs exceeding budgeted amounts.

In the case of the $5.3-billion Crosstown, dubbed the largest transit project in the country, the private consortium constructing the line has apparently alerted Metrolinx to the potential delay. Metrolinx hasn’t accepted the position, but that is often a matter of money. Accept the fact and you accept liability. We’ve been down this road before. It cost taxpayers $237 million to settle the first delay, after the consortium sued Metrolinx and blamed it for the delays. Now this.

Causes of the potential new delay include discovery of groundwater at one station site and more work than anticipated at a CP rail bridge at Mount Dennis. Then, water-retaining structures in place at Eglinton station need shoring up, a tricky and time-consuming operation. Of course, as always, there is the risk of Bombardier not delivering the new state-of-the-art LRT vehicles on time, delaying opening date.

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To this nauseating ring of cha-ching, add Metrolinx’s higher-than-anticipated costs for professional services, and to buy property and vehicles. Before long the tab could balloon to $332 million beyond the budget.

Remember all this when the premier says he is responsible for kick-starting stalled subway construction at huge savings to taxpayers, using the money-saving private sector, who deliver the projects on budget and on time.

That new build-out Ford announced last year, costing just under $29 billion and in place by 2030? If only.

Royson James is a former Star reporter who is a current freelance contributing columnist based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @roysonjames

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