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TORONTO — When Toronto’s half-a-billion-dollar barn for its fleet of new streetcars opens this spring or summer, it might be practically empty.

The mammoth facility at the corner of Leslie Street and Lake Shore Boulevard will house and maintain Bombardier’s low-floor vehicles. The problem is, the order is delayed. Instead of the 43 originally anticipated by this time, or even the scaled-back expectation of 15, only three are in service. A fourth is expected next month, but beyond that it’s anyone’s guess, although the TTC insists it will get all 204 by 2019.

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The city ordered the streetcars in 2009, at a cost of $1.2 billion.

The delivery wrinkle is the latest in a series of controversies for the Leslie Barns, which doubled in price and faced pushback from the local Leslieville neighbourhood, which will now see a parade of transit vehicles going home to sleep.

There’s not even the option to use the space for anything else, like more buses, which the TTC is also buying, because the barns were purpose-built for the new streetcars.