The provincial government is planning to shelve existing plans for the relief line subway and replace it with a lighter rail service that would span Ontario Place to the Ontario Science Centre — and it claims it can build the much longer line years earlier than the current plan.

The replacement for the relief line, which the province has dubbed the “Ontario Line,” formed what Premier Doug Ford described as the “crown jewel” of an expansive $28.5-billion transit plan he announced Wednesday that was met with both cautious optimism and grave concern at city hall.

In addition to the Ontario Line, which the government estimates would cost $10.9 billion, the province also plans to build the Yonge North subway extension, estimated at $5.6 billion, a three-stop Scarborough subway extension at $5.5 billion, and an underground extension of the Eglinton Crosstown to Pearson Airport at $4.7 billion.

“Our government is investing in transportation to bring relief and new opportunities to transit users and commuters,” Ford said in a prepared statement issued ahead of his announcement at GO Transit’s Willowbrook Yard in South Etobicoke.

He told assembled reporters and elected officials that the province was committed to building a “transit plan for the 21st Century” that would have “subways at its core.”

“For the first time ever the Ontario government is taking the lead in building new subways in this province. Because the people of Ontario have waited long enough.”

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While earlier this week the premier billed the plan as a $28.5-billion investment, the government clarified that Ontario would contribute $11.2 billion. The federal government, Toronto, and York Region would be asked to make up the rest.

However, Ford wouldn’t rule out Ontario paying for the entire plan if other governments don’t pay up.

“If need be we’ll backstop it ourselves,” he said.

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Toronto Mayor John Tory declined to attend the premier’s announcement, telling reporters the day before that he still hadn’t been briefed on the province’s plans.

But at a city hall press conference Wednesday, he reacted to Ford’s plan with guarded positivity, saying he needs many more details but so far likes what he sees including a provincial commitment to Toronto’s transit priorities.

“It is important to see the province of Ontario making long-term, multibillion-dollar investment in building transit in Toronto and the GTA,” said Tory, whose office was briefed on the plan Tuesday evening, calling the money “a significant win for the city.”

On his concern that modifying some of Toronto’s transit plans could delay construction, Tory said: “With the Ontario relief line it appears as if we might be able to get it done faster, while the opposite may be true in the case of the Scarborough subway.”

Others at city hall weren’t as enthusiastic. Councillor Gord Perks (Ward 4, Parkdale-High Park) called the province’s plans “ill-informed and destructive” and predicted they would ensure “nothing will be built for years.”

“We have a number of highly developed transit studies that show us what could be practically built and this erases all of that and replaces it with something drawn on the back of a napkin. It’s a huge setback,” he said.

Map of Ontario government's new proposed subway plans View document on Scribd

The relief line, which would connect the eastern end of the TTC’s Line 2 to Line 1 downtown, has been discussed at city hall for years. The project would take pressure off the increasingly crowded Line 1 and is considered by many experts to be Toronto’s most pressing transit priority.

The 15-kilometre Ontario Line would be roughly double the length than existing plans for the relief line. The province’s version would run from Ontario Place to Osgoode and Queen stations on the TTC’s Line 1, cross the Don River, turn north to connect to Pape station on Line 2, and extend to the Ontario Science Centre station on the Eglinton Crosstown. The city’s version would only run between Osgoode and Pape.

The Progressive Conservatives are claiming they can build the Ontario Line by 2027, two years earlier than the city had targeted for its shorter version, which has already undergone years of study and roughly $22 million of planning work.

The province said it would attempt to build on existing work done for the relief line but it’s unclear how much of those plans could be repurposed.

The Ontario Line would use trains smaller than TTC subways, could be driverless, and would run on elevated tracks on parts of the route. Provincial officials compared the train technology to that operated on the Docklands Light Railway in London, U.K.

The government said the line could carry 400,000 people per day and would “have similar peak capacity” as the TTC’s existing Line 1 subway as automated trains could be run close together.

The TTC has raised operational concerns about building a new line with trains that aren’t compatible with the rest of the system, but the province argues a line using smaller trains would be easier to build, and eliminating tunnelling on parts of the route would enable cheaper and faster construction.

The province also says the Ontario Line could be accelerated by using a public-private partnership (P3) to procure the project, committing funding for it up front, and not specifying it be operated using existing TTC technology.

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Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency, estimates procuring the Ontario Line would take two and a half years, followed by about five years of construction.

By contrast, the 19-kilometre Eglinton Crosstown will have taken 10 years to construct if it opens on schedule in 2021. That project was also procured using a P3, was fully funded by the province and will use vehicles lighter than TTC subways.

Metrolinx acknowledged the province’s proposed time lines for the new project are “tough schedules” but maintained they are realistic.

Steven Farber, an associate professor of Human Geography at U of T Scarborough, called the schedule for the Ontario Line “very optimistic.”

Smaller, automated trains could potentially speed up construction and reduce costs somewhat but it’s hard to know without more details, he said.

He stated one of his biggest concerns with Ford’s transit plans was the “mismatch” in extending heavy underground subways into low-density suburbs while using light rail lower-capacity technology in the downtown core, where the most people live.

“It boggles me,” he said. “As a regional transportation plan it largely continues to make some fundamental miscalculations.”

Farber added he was happy to see the extension to the Ontario Science Centre because that could give low-income, high-density neighbourhoods such as Flemingdon Park access to rapid transit. But he said he has seen no analysis showing the rationale for extending the line to Ontario Place.

Meanwhile, although the province says it could build the Ontario Line quickly, its transit plans looks likely to delay the completion of a subway extension to Scarborough.

The city is currently pursuing a one-stop extension to Scarborough Town Centre, with a planned opening date of late 2026. That’s when the existing Scarborough RT is expected to reach the end of its service life.

The province’s plan to revert to a previous three-stop extension with stations at Lawrence East and Sheppard Ave. would increase the cost by $1.6 billion, and mean the extension would open some time “before 2030.” The result could leave today’s Scarborough RT riders stuck on the bus for years.

Tory said he’s concerned about the project’s “magnitude of the delay.”

Councillor Cynthia Lai (Ward 23, Scarborough North) downplayed those concerns and said Ford was doing the right thing by adding stops back to the plan.

“Everything is about downtown, downtown ... Only Doug knows how we feel up there.”

Ford’s pledge to pursue the Yonge North extension to Richmond Hill was met by shouts of joy from officials from north of Toronto who attended the announcement.

Among them was Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti, who said, “we’ve always asked for consistent, reliable funding of transit projects and we finally got that today. There’s no more guessing about what’s going to be built in the GTA.”

Scarpitti was not prepared to say how much his municipality would pony up for Ford’s plan.

The province committed to opening the Yonge extension only after the Ontario Line is complete. The city and TTC have warned completing the Yonge North extension before a relief line would be dangerous as it would add passengers to the already crowded Line 1.

Under the province’s plan, the Eglinton West LRT would be built underground between Royal York and Martin Grove Rds. The city had previously explored burying the line but found it would be expensive and the benefits wouldn’t outweigh the costs.

The province proposes advancing its transit vision by “uploading” Toronto’s subway network, saying the province has greater financial and regulatory powers that will lead to speedier construction.

The government clarified its plan Wednesday, saying it intends to introduce legislation this spring to take ownership of new projects only. Legislation to take over the existing network wouldn’t come until 2020.

“I’m deeply concerned about this government’s plan to upload the subway, whether they do it tomorrow or they do it a few months from now. The end result is Toronto will have less say over what transit is built,” said Ontario NDP MPP and transit critic Jessica Bell (University-Rosedale).

With files from Rob Ferguson, David Rider and Francine Kopun.

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

Rob Ferguson is a Toronto-based reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robferguson1

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