In pitching their one-stop Scarborough subway plan and later defending it, staff in Mayor John Tory’s office and former chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat said the cost of the two-for-one deal being proposed had been verified by a third party.But the firm they named, the U.S.-based HDR, says now it never verified the costs.In 2016, Tory and Keesmaat made the two-for-one proposal, saying that if an estimated $3.56-billion three-stop subway planned from Kennedy station to Sheppard Ave. was reduced to just one stop at the Scarborough Town Centre, there would be enough money leftover to pay for a multi-stop LRT extension of the Crosstown line east along Eglinton Ave.Last month the Star reported that internal emails showed the plan was sold to council and the public with no time for city officials to check those cost assumptions.In providing response for that story, Keesmaat told the Star the cost assumptions had been checked by the outside company, HDR, a comment that was in line with what she and the mayor’s office said in 2016.“The fact that this could be achieved within the order of magnitude funding envelope was verified by a third party in advance of us stating this in public,†Keesmaat told the Star last month.Read more:Scarborough’s one-stop subway: ‘This was a bait and switch’Doug Ford vows 3-stop Scarborough subway. The timeline could leave riders on buses for yearsOpinion | Edward Keenan: The Scarborough subway was sold to us with a specific turn of phrase. We should have been paying attentionDays after the story was published, HDR’s market strategy manager emailed the Star to say that wasn’t the case. “Just for reference HDR had no involvement in doing any third party cost estimate,†wrote Saloni Shah this month.Shah confirmed that HDR only provided high-level advice on costing for the Eglinton East LRT and that no advice was provided on the subway. In an email this week, Keesmaat said she pr ...
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