Toronto’s costs continue to climb following the cancellation of the Scarborough LRT in favour of a subway. But so far, the Ontario government isn’t saying where the tally stands.

Last week, Infrastructure Ontario announced it has cancelled an order for an LRV maintenance and storage facility that was to have housed light rail vehicles for both the Scarborough and Sheppard LRTs.

Among the costs of that cancellation could be some compensation to the three shortlisted bidders on the contract, which has been in the works since 2010.

Toronto is already on the hook for $85 million in “sunk” costs because city council killed the fully funded, seven-stop Scarborough LRT in favour of a $3-billion, three-stop subway extension to replace the aging Scarborough RT that runs from Kennedy Station to Sheppard Ave. now.

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IO is still assessing the costs of cancelling the LRV storage facility, including potential compensation to the qualified bidders, said spokeswoman Paulette Den Elzen.

“What’s not clear at this point is: What do you do for the shortlisted bidders, recognizing the amount of work they’ve put into preparing their submissions? How do you ensure they’re being treated fairly?” she said.

The shortlisted construction consortia include Plenary Infrastructure, Sheppard Facility Development Group and SNC-Lavalin. There is no prescription for cancellation compensation in the tendering document known as the request for proposals (RFP), said Den Elzen.

Among the other costs Ontario has incurred on the LRV facility are the fees to “advisers” such as lawyers or engineers. That total is also still being assessed, she said.

The maintenance and storage facility at Conlins Rd. and Sheppard Ave. was supposed to house 83 light rail vehicles — 48 for the Scarborough LRT and 35 for the Sheppard LRT, which remains in Toronto’s transit expansion plans.

While the value of the contract isn’t known, by way of comparison, the TTC estimates the new Leslie Barns streetcar facility it is building on the lakefront will cost about $400 million. It will house about 100 streetcars.

In its June 28 letter to city manager Joe Pennachetti, Metrolinx suggested that the cost of cancelling the Sheppard-Scarborough LRV garage “is in the order of several million dollars.”

The facility was to have occupied 17,500 square metres on a 12.9-hectare piece of land. In its letter to the city, Metrolinx said it had already spent $11 million preparing the site and designing the garage.

Also on the list of unknown costs is the renegotiation of the light rail vehicle order with Bombardier. Those talks haven’t even begun yet, according to company spokesman Marc Laforge.

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Bombardier has been paid $65 million toward the $770-million Metrolinx contract, he said. But Laforge downplayed the significance of the Scarborough LRT cancellation.

“When we’re talking about Scarborough we’re talking about 48 LRVs out of the 182-car contract,” he said. “We certainly would have to look at this with the big picture. We’re going to be open-minded, and we wouldn’t want to give the sense we’re up for money for contracts that were not executed.”

Bombardier is also supplying 204 new streetcars for the TTC’s downtown routes, at a cost of $1.2 billion. The TTC’s new Toronto Rocket subways are also Bombardier-built.

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