The Sheppard subway plan will envision expansion out to Scarborough Town Centre but start by focusing on financing construction of a first stop, says the man tasked by Mayor Rob Ford to find billions in private investment.

Gordon Chong told the Star in an interview he will release his hotly anticipated report next month, “certainly before Christmas,” and expects construction underway well before the next civic election in October 2014.

“Our project and plan is to go to Scarborough Town Centre, but we do it in phases, opening each new station as we’re ready,” Chong said. “The most important thing is that we get started in this council’s term.

“As long as progress can be shown, I think the mayor kept his promise.”

In last fall’s civic election, Ford promised something very different than work on a single stop. In his transportation platform, released on YouTube Sept. 7, 2010, the then-candidate vowed to extend the Sheppard line from Downsview station to Scarborough Town Centre — “about 12 kilometres and up to 10 new stations.”

What’s more, he pledged that the Sheppard line “will be completed and open before the Pan Am Games in (July) 2015.” The project was a key platform plank.

Depending on when construction starts, Chong said, it’s possible — though unlikely — the line will reach Victoria Park Ave. by fall 2014.

He was tapped with finding up to $4 billion in private financing to build the $4.7 billion line after Ford pronounced his predecessor David Miller’s light-rail Transit City plan dead and negotiated a new deal with the province for its already promised funding.

Asked about finding developers willing to commit cash to public-private partnerships for projects around subway stations, Chong would only say: “It’s really important that we do the rigour up front. We need time certainty and cost certainty.”

He has reportedly had trouble landing such deals.

In May, Chong enraged some on Ford’s team by telling the Star’s Royson James that, to pay for the Sheppard line, the city would probably have to employ road tolls, congestion charges and other unpopular revenue tools.

Ford promised voters before the election: “My plan does not include any new taxes, tolls or congestion charges.”

Asked if alternative revenue sources are still in his plan, Chong said the final analysis is not complete. Most transit observers believe, however, that any realistic plan will have to include them.

Premier Dalton McGuinty has not yet replied to Ford’s request for early injection into Sheppard of up to $650 million in funds left over from the provincially funded, not-yet-built Eglinton Crosstown line.

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One person familiar with the transit expansion discussions said on background that the projected surplus is really only about $200 million. But rising project costs, including getting the Eglinton line across the Don Valley, threaten even that. (Tunnelling is technically difficult and pricey, so above-ground options are being considered.)

“There’s a good chance it will be less than $200 million.”