Mayor John Tory has backed a political push to keep the hope of tunnelling or elevating an LRT along Eglinton Ave. West alive despite city staff recommending against it.

A city staff report before executive committee on Tuesday found the additional cost of tunnelling or elevating six key intersections of the light-rail line would be between $881.9 million and $1.32 billion.

That estimate only covers the additional costs to construct each of those 800-metre sections above or below ground, including additional operating and maintenance costs. It does not include any other costs required to build the 9-kilometre LRT at grade.

The entire line, running from Mount Dennis to Mississauga was earlier estimated to cost $1.5 to $2.1 billion. At the time eight to 12 stops and three grade separations were considered.

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Staff have now recommended ruling out any further consideration of the studied elevated or tunnelled sections, concluding in their report: “In all cases the estimated costs of a grade separation is greater than the estimated benefits of the asset over the 60-year lifecycle.”

Despite that recommendation, on Tuesday, Tory pushed for further study.

“The feedback we got from residents, from business, from local representatives had me convinced and we’ll be taking steps today to direct the staff to take a harder look at grade separations,” Tory told reporters before the meeting.

At executive, the mayor successfully moved to create a working group to further investigate the possibility for elevated or tunnelled sections.

Council has the final say next week.

On Tuesday, Tory was under pressure from members of the public and local councillors Stephen Holyday, whom he recently named deputy mayor of Etobicoke, and John Campbell, along with the local Liberal MPP Yvan Baker.

A community update sent from Baker’s office to his constituents last week said he was working together with Holyday and Campbell to see the entire line tunnelled and called the city’s study “flawed.” The email encouraged residents to write to Tory in support of tunnelling ahead of Tuesday’s meeting.

On Tuesday, Campbell also called the study “flawed,” saying it looked at each grade separation in isolation, but he did not explain how that would change the study’s finding that the benefits don’t outweigh the costs.

“The idea is to not inhibit the flow of cars,” said Campbell, who represents Ward 4 (Etobicoke Centre). “It’s about the total travel time.”

He said the plans for the LRT “could” be an election issue in his ward but that he thinks the it’s “not high on the list of transit priorities.”

When Tory ran for mayor in 2014, he promised a heavy rail spur between Mount Dennis and Mississauga — which he eventually admitted would have required substantial tunnelling — as part of his larger “SmartTrack” plan that primarily employed existing GO lines. Since his election, that plan has been substantially modified and the heavy rail spur abandoned due to exorbitant estimated costs.

Mayor Tory on the importance of updating Toronto's transit at City Council on May 24th. "We took decades off building transit... and now we're having to make up for lost time," says Tory. Read more on the council vote on the relief line at the Toronto Star: http://bit.ly/2rlLA3A. Or read and excerpt of Ben Spurr's article below:

In its place, an LRT that would connect to the Eglinton Crosstown LRT currently under construction was proposed.

After council approved moving ahead with that new LRT plan last year, staff studied possible grade separations at six major intersections along Eglinton Ave.: Martin Grove Rd., Kipling Ave., Islington Ave., Royal York Rd., Scarlett Rd., and Jane St.

Staff looked at both elevated options, where the LRT would run on a platform over or beside the roadway as well as tunnelling along Eglinton, depending on the constraints of each intersection.

The study found that the LRT built at-grade would provide better access for transit users, not reduce development potential, and have fewer environmental impacts.

Elevation or tunnelling, the study found, would provide a small improvement in transit travel times because signals would be co-ordinated if built at grade.

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It found traffic flow would be impacted by an LRT at grade because it would prevent left turns outside of a left turn signal. But it found those traffic benefits did not outweigh the costs.

Though executive committee approved the concepts for the LRT at-grade, subject to further investigation, and new GO stations to be branded as “SmartTrack” stops, there was no update on how the city will pay for them. That report, requested by council to be delivered earlier this year, will now be presented in the second quarter of next year.

“We continue to just fly blind in terms of our transit planning in the city of Toronto, adding priorities, subtracting priorities, without any context for what we can actually deliver,” Councillor Gord Perks told committee. “It’s poor governance and it’s a very poor way to plan the future of the city of Toronto.”

Correction – November 30, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version to update an incorrect photo caption.

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