Toronto officials are asking council to spend another $1.65 million on studies of SmartTrack, Mayor John Tory’s top policy priority.

Council has already approved $750,000 in study spending. In a report released Friday, city manager Joe Pennachetti said the additional studies are necessary to assess the proposed three-stop Eglinton Ave. W. portion, which would not run on existing GO Transit tracks and could require extensive tunnelling.

Tory pitched SmartTrack as a 22-stop, 53-kilometre, $8-billion line running mostly in a U shape from Markham through downtown and up to Mississauga. The non-Eglinton portions, on GO tracks, are already being assessed as part of ongoing studies of the province’s Regional Express Rail proposal.

The Eglinton spur, from Mount Dennis to the Airport Corporate Centre in Mississauga, was the most controversial part of Tory’s route proposal during the election campaign. Tory first promised it would not require tunnelling, then acknowledged under pressure than it might. He brushed aside questions about technical obstacles.

The studies, Pennachetti said, would look at the “technical feasibility, community impacts, and cost implications of a heavy rail line” on the Eglinton route, including the “feasibility of any required tunnels and bridges.”

Pennachetti said the city would present a proposed SmartTrack financing strategy to council in the fall of this year. Negotiations with other governments are underway.

Tory pledged to pay the city’s portion of the costs solely through tax increment financing, a method his critics described as overly risky and Tory defended vigorously. A group of officials from the city and the province will outline a funding model in the fall report to council, Pennachetti wrote, including “an assessment of financial risk.”

The fall report will also include “high level cost estimates for all corridors.” The final “business case” for the Eglinton portion will be presented in the winter of 2016. Residents will be given a formal opportunity to weigh in on the Eglinton spur during public consultation meetings this year.

The city and province will have to determine a fare structure. Tory said late in the day that riders would pay only the “TTC fare of the day.”

“It is recognized,” Pennachetti wrote, “that the full benefits of (Regional Express Rail) can only be achieved if fare and service integration is implemented to provide all GTHA transit riders with a seamless regional transit system.”

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