The Toronto region is in the midst of what politicians are billing as a “transit renaissance,” which will see a major build of badly needed public transportation across the GTHA for the first time in decades.

But according to a new report, unless governments find more funding to pay for those planned lines, the money will run out before the renaissance is even halfway completed.

The report is to be released Tuesday by Move the GTHA, a group of organizations that advocates for transit improvements. Its goal was to quantify the investment still required to complete the ambitious network expansion the province announced eight years ago. The authors found that less than half the planned network has been allocated funding.

Entitled Are We There Yet?, the report was shared with the Star ahead of its release. It calculates that, taking into account the province’s 25-year Big Move plan announced in 2008 as well as the regional express initiative (RER) announced more recently, the total length of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area’s rapid transit network would be 1395 kilometres by 2033.

Of that, the report calculated that 61 kilometres was in place in 2008 and isn’t slated for upgrades and 52 kilometres have been built since that time. (The figure for existing lines doesn’t include the GO network because much of is it slated for substantial service improvements.)

A further 519 kilometres of new or improved transit is funded but not yet completed, and more than half of the total network, or 763 kilometres, is wholly unfunded.

“There’s some good news in this story. The different levels of government have committed quite a large chunk of capital money. The bad news is though, we still need another roughly equal amount of capital money,” said Peter Miasek, a spokesperson for Move the GTHA and president of Transport Action Ontario.

The report determined that of the $68.1 billion cost to build the Big Move and RER, governments have committed more than half, or $39.3 billion. The bulk of that sum, $30.9 billion, has come from Queen’s Park. That leaves $28.8 billion that federal, provincial and municipal governments need to find over the next decade and a half to complete the network by 2033.

The report lists as unfunded projects the relief line subway, extending the Eglinton Crosstown to Pearson Airport, GO Regional Rail service to places such as Bolton and Seaton, Dundas St. bus rapid transit and pushing the Yonge subway north to Richmond Hill.

A task the report calls “equally challenging” to finding money to build transit is raising the funds to operate the expanded network once it’s constructed. The authors estimated that by 2032, the non-capital costs of maintaining the expanded system would reach $3.8 billion a year.

Robert Plitt, a Move the GTHA spokesman and acting director of Evergreen CityWorks, stressed that governments have made “tremendous progress” in transit investment since the launch of the Big Move, which includes such projects as the Eglinton Crosstown, Union Pearson Express, the Mississauga Transitway and York Region bus rapid transit.

But with the federal government promising to invest $120 billion over 10 years in transit and other infrastructure and provincial transit agency Metrolinx in the midst of a review of the Big Move, Move the GTHA timed the release of the report to start a conversation about how to make up the funding shortfall.

“We’re at a moment where it’s possible for us to actually finish the job that we started,” Plitt said.

The group is calling for all three levels of government to hold a “transit summit” as soon as possible to develop a funding strategy.

The report suggested several options for new revenue tools that could be used to pay for transit, including HST and gas tax rate increases, as well as a new parking space levy and a road pricing scheme, but the group didn’t endorse any specific tool.

Asked how the province intends to fund the rest of the planned network, Bob Nichols, a spokesman for the ministry of transportation, didn’t answer directly. Nichols wrote in an email Monday the government is reviewing the Move the GTHA report.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Nichols stated that the GTHA is experiencing “unprecedented” transit growth, and the Liberal government’s Moving Ontario Forward plan includes major investments over the next decade including $13.5 billion for GO RER, $1.4 billion for Hurontario LRT in Mississauga. In total $32 billion in transit projects is already underway, Nichols said.

“These investments will help to manage congestion, connect people to jobs and improve the economy and residents’ quality of life. The province will continue to work with its federal and municipal government partners to support these transformational transit investments,” he wrote.

The report didn’t break down the $28.8-billion shortfall by municipality, so the value of the unfunded projects that would serve Toronto is unclear. This fall, Toronto city council is expected to debate new revenue tools to pay for its share of the transit network as well as other city priorities.

In an email to the Star on Monday, a spokeswoman for Mayor John Tory’s office said he intends to endorse revenue tools when the issue goes before council, with the hope that councillors will approve new revenue sources before the end of the year.

Read more about: