In early 2016, Mayor John Tory and the city’s chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat made a tantalizing pitch: with the same $3.56-billion earmarked for a three-station subway extension in Scarborough, the city could instead extend the subway by just one stop and have enough money left over to expand the Eglinton Crosstown light rail line from Kennedy to U of T’s Scarborough campus.Records obtained by the Star through freedom of information requests show that officials at the city and the Toronto Transit Commission felt they couldn’t guarantee the two-for-one price. Those typically responsible for verifying cost estimates were kept out of the loop until just days — or in some case hours — before the proposal was publicly unveiled.The skeptics were right. Within five months, the cost of the one-stop subway extension would swell to consume nearly all of the money budgeted for the original three-station configuration, leaving almost no funds for the promised LRT extension.And even before that happened, even as the plan was endorsed by a majority of city councillors as a “peace in the land” solution to a growing political problem, one senior TTC official privately cautioned his colleagues against doing anything to legitimize what he saw as an “ill-conceived” idea.“This wasn’t a transit plan, this was a sales job,” said Councillor Josh Matlow. “It was a bait and switch, and the public was misled.” Tory’s spokesperson told the Star that the mayor was relying on professional advice at the time, and still stands by the plan.Keesmaat says she stands by what was promised at the time, based on the information they had then.On Tuesday, Premier Doug Ford shocked councillors as the province’s plans to take over major transit projects already underway became clearer, including a return to the more expensive three-stop option just as city council is set to debate updated costs and schedule ...
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