Ontario abruptly cancelled Hamilton’s star-crossed LRT project Monday, blaming billions of dollars in expected budget overruns — but also promised $1 billion in transportation makeup cash, instead.

Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney eventually gave up on a planned public announcement Monday in Hamilton after a crowd of upset residents and council members — including Mayor Fred Eisenberger — crashed a planned press briefing.

A visibly upset Eisenberger then told the crowd the Tory government had killed the long-planned project in a “betrayal of the City of Hamilton.”

The mayor noted Premier Doug Ford publicly committed to the project just months ago. “That was a lie, and they’ve been angling to cut this project ever since,” he said.

In a phone call late Monday, Mulroney acknowledged the “anger and frustration” of residents who only nine months ago heard her predecessor transportation minister, Jeff Yurek, announce the $1-billion LRT was “good to go forward” after a period of frozen funding to study project viability.

Since then, the number of properties bought by Metrolinx for the project has grown to 60, more than $162 million has been spent on LRT in total and 40-plus residents have been forced to relocate for a transit line that will not go ahead.

The Spectator obtained Ministry of Transportation briefing notes as far back as January that warned project costs had spiked and would exceed the $1-billion provincial commitment.

Mulroney said the incoming PC government was concerned about the LRT budget from the get-go in 2018 but opted to get an independent cost estimate “to see if we could (still) deliver” the project.

Provincial officials forwarded to journalists a summarized page of “expert third-party” cost estimates that suggest the “total costs of the LRT” — including construction, financing and 30 years of operations and maintenance — had ballooned to $5.5 billion. (They also suggested the previous Liberal government had estimated the total cost at $3 billion, a number never made public in the past.)

That includes a construction and capital cost alone of more than $2 billion, although a specific breakdown of that estimate was not made available. The province had only budgeted $1 billion for capital costs.

The third-party estimate suggested the city would also be on the hook for close to $1 billion in operating costs over the life of the 30-year private operation contract. Again, no breakdown was provided.

Other politicians openly scoffed at the estimates.

Provincial NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said the Tory government “likes to make up numbers to justify their cuts.” She noted the “real numbers” were just a few months away from arriving in the form of competitive bids from three design-build consortiums next March.

Former Liberal transportation minister Steven Del Duca, who is now running to be provincial Liberal leader, argued in a statement Ford has been “searching for a way to kill the Hamilton LRT” since he was elected.

Mulroney, by contrast, said Del Duca and the former Liberal government “misled the people of Hamilton” by claiming the project could ever come in under budget.

She reiterated the province’s $1-billion commitment to transportation in the city remains. But it is not clear exactly what it could be spent on and who is in charge of making that decision.

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Eisenberger said Monday that council will have to meet and discuss options, but he is hoping the money will be spent on transit regardless.

Mulroney said a special “task force” will be set up to study how the money can be spent — but she would not say Monday who will be on the task force or what options will be considered for the cash.

With files from Natalie Paddon and Robert Benzie, Toronto Star

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