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Toronto, Mayor John Tory says that he is “staying tuned” for what he believes will be “good news” in the form of a commitment from the provincial government to help fund the construction of new transit in Toronto.
Tory made the comment to reporters following a meeting with Premier Kathleen Wynne at city hall on Thursday morning.
“There were no big cardboard checks that were bought but I understand that the premier gets it and I will be staying tuned for news that I think will be good news for the people of Toronto on these projects,” he said of the meeting. “They (the provincial government) have been good partners and I believe they will continue to be.”
Tory’s meeting with Wynne came two weeks after he promised to “renew and step up the pace” of his advocacy on all party leaders in order to get them to commit to funding major transit projects in Toronto ahead of June’s election.
Tory told reporters on Thursday that the long-discussed relief subway line was the “centre piece” of his discussions with Wynne but he noted that the project is just part of a plan for a wider transit network, which also includes an extension of the Crosstown LRT and the construction of a new LRT along Queen’s Quay.
The province has already contributed $150 million to complete planning work on the eight-stop relief line but so far it has not committed to helping to fund its estimated $6.8 billion cost.
The federal government, meanwhile, has indicated that it will spend $33 billion over the next 11 years on transit with the City of Toronto expected to receive about $4.8 billion of that.
“It is not like we haven’t begun the work but I made it very clear to her that we now need to go to the next step,” Tory said. “Sooner or later the planning will be done and we will need to start building and we need the money for that.”
The relief subway line would travel along Queen Street and Eastern Avenue before turning north at Carlaw Avenue and connecting with Line 2 on Danforth Avenue.
TTC staff have long contended that the project is necessary to take some pressure off the Yonge line, which is expected to reach capacity by 2031.
Speaking with reporters, Wynne said that her government does “recognize” that it must continue building transit in Toronto, though she stopped short of committing to fund the construction of the relief line.
“The reason there is $150 million being used right now to do planning on the relief line, for example, is that we recognize that we must continue,” she said. “We have to be ready to continue to put shovels in the ground as we build the next project. As we work on our budget we are very, very cognizant of the need to continue infrastructure building.”
Tory told reporters that he plans to meet with the other provincial leaders in the coming months in order to push them on their commitment to funding transit in Toronto.
