TORONTO

Metrolinx came out Tuesday defending the $95-million bill it has slapped on the City of Toronto for city infrastructure upgrades made during the construction of the Union Pearson Express.

Bruce McCuaig, president and CEO of Metrolinx, said the $95 million -- to be paid out over several years -- is the result of a "tentative agreement" with the City of Toronto, after discussions that lasted "a number of years."

Upgrades in infrastructure include "improvements to municipal roads, improvements to water and sewer (systems the) municipality owns," he said.

The Georgetown South corridor is not just for use by the UP Express trains, McCuaig insisted.

"It's being used by Union-Pearson Express, it's being used by GO transit, it's being used by VIA Rail, it's being used by CN Rail," he said.

Metrolinx board chair Rob Prichard also stressed that the money is not the city's bill "for any particular rail service."

"It's the city paying for the infrastructure improve-hat improvements that are owned by the city in the city."

A source with knowledge of the negotiations said the city negotiated the costs down from Metrolinx's original ask of $170 million to $95 million.

"We're paying for half of the work not the full amount," the source told the Sun.

Metrolinx spokesman Anne Marie Aikins explained the upgrades involve road and rail crossings.

"In order to expedite the work, Metrolinx has relocated all City of Toronto utilities and completed the road crossing work on behalf of the city with the understanding ing that it would seek repayment for this work as outlined line in the various ous crossing agreements," she said. As Metrolinx officials justified giving the city a bill for UP Express costs, provincial officials were at Queen's Park defending their refusal to foot the bill for Union Station cost overruns.

The executive committee learned Monday that the province had declined to pay the city's request for $35 million worth of the cost overruns with the station's revitalization.

Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca said Tuesday that Toronto has known "from day one" that the it would be responsible for the bill.

"We have no intention of providing more funds over and above the $172 million that we've already provided for the Union Station revitalization," Del Duca said.

The city has also been made aware over the past four or five years that it would be absorbing the cost of a portion of the Georgetown South work, although the actual work was done by Metrolinx, he said.