Billions Spent, Transit Lessons Learned with the Hon. Prabmeet Sarkaria & Hon. Todd J. McCarthy

Ontario is in the middle of the largest transit expansion in its history and two of the province's most senior ministers say the hardest part is behind us. Recorded live at the Board's 11th Annual Transportation Symposium, this conversation between Giles Gherson and Ministers Sarkaria and McCarthy covers GO Expansion, the shift to alliance-style procurement, OneFare, and why — despite the bumps on the road — the future has never looked brighter for getting around the Toronto region.

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You know, sure, there's been a lot of bumps on the road, but I'm really excited about what the future holds on every single one of these lines. Once we're in the ground, we're moving, we've learned a lot, and we're going to apply those learnings. Hello, I'm Giles Gerson, and this is Toronto Talks, the voice of Toronto's business community. What are we talking about? Each episode is a conversation with top business leaders about how they're shaping growth, driving competitiveness, and building up our economy. It's about what they believe it will take to make sure the Toronto region remains one of the world's great global cities. Here's today's conversation. Now, we've got two ministers here today, and I'm glad to see that they got the memo on suitable attire for Budget Day. It is Budget Day in the entire government, and actually we're very lucky to have them, because normally speaking, ministers are sort of tied to Queen's Park for most of the day. So we're very lucky to have them now. And they are wearing their pinstripe blue suits. So that's a great start. It has been a landmark year for transit in Toronto. I think we would all agree with the opening of the Elyton Crosstown, long awaited, and Finch West LRT. And it was, I think, representing the largest expansion in the city's rail network in decades. Even more transformational projects are on the way, as we've heard. the Ontario Line, GO Expansion, and the East Harbour Transit Hub, which we're all very excited by because it's not too far away from here. These are significant investments, and I think the government gets a lot of credit for really getting going on this after decades of delay, I think, in terms of transit improvement. But there is some disappointment, I think, and this morning we opened the Toronto Star to see a story about scaling back or re-scoping the GO expansion project, which I think, as we all heard, was going to look at 15-minute all-day service, electrification, massive, massive project. And so I guess we shouldn't be too surprised if it is being scaled back. But maybe Mr. Zaccario just give us a bit of a sense of what that story meant and where we go from here on that. Yeah, thank you, Giles, and thank you once again for hosting us and for everyone that's here today. I probably wouldn't classify it the same way as that. I would say that the lakeshore lines, as we've seen right now, are some of the most used in the entire province. So we're focusing the first bit of electrification on those lakeshore lines. But GO Expansion is a project that we've been investing billions and billions of dollars into since we've been elected and we've continued to move the needle on the service levels and on more frequency of transit. Since 2015, we've made some remarkable progress on go expansion. It's not just about electrification. There's so much more to it. And we've put billions and billions of dollars into it. Every single line that you look at today, you compare it to 2015, 2018, Some of the numbers off the top of my head, Lakeshore, East, West, they're both up over 40%. But when you take it out a bit further, you look at the Kitchener line, the Berry line, the Stovall line, we're up over 223% on each of those lines from trips. So the number of passengers? I sold an actual amount of trips that are happening. We can talk about passengers as well. I'm happy to get into those numbers. But I think I even wrote some of the numbers down here. I think we're at over increases of over 160 on the area, 185 on Stowell, 424 on Kitchener-Line on just weekly trips that we've been able to add onto that. And it shows in our ridership numbers. So we have increased service. We continue to do that. And we continue to get to the goal of 15-minute service on all these big lines. And we see the return from it on the amount of people that are using it. Last year alone, we had 76 million people between UpExpress and Go Transit. That's up over 10% year-over-year on ridership, just on a numbers basis. So it tells you, in a post-pandemic world, I think Go Transit has recovered probably the best out of some of the North American Transit agency. And we're really proud of that. but that has to do with the increased amount of service that we are putting towards and dollars that we are investing into this line so electrification is a part of it go expansion there's so many other parts to it but those increases in service are going to continue to come and we're going to continue to push and get more services and more service levels on each of those lines so that's great to hear uh but then just to clarify so that barry you know the barry line and uh it's all it continues to be it continues to be a part of our go expansion plans, absolutely. I mean, the problem, I think, for the government, and I have to say, you know, great credit to the government for moving, and you for moving as fast as you have, and obviously infrastructure and ministry as well, on this expansion, both of road, but also obviously of transit. I guess the challenge for government has been the sheer growth in population in the region. So, you know, that's not standing still, hasn't been standing still. So you've got like 2 million more people in the region than you had, say, in 2000. And so the yardstick keeps moving on you as you build it out. So it's very hard to get ahead of that. But, you know, but I think you've given us a sense that progress is still coming fast. Absolutely. Which is great. Now, you know, one of the issues that I think we face, and it's a bit of an infrastructure capacity issue as well, is when we think about Edmonton or Finch, just the sheer amount of time it took for those projects to come about. And we all know, I think we have a good sense of the reasons. But I guess the real question the audience would have in the room is, have we learned the lessons from, you know, Edmonton and Fish, but particularly Edmonton? I think one of the big issues there was starting that project way back, way before the time of this government, without really a clear plan for execution. And we find that in Ontario with infrastructure projects, particularly the transit ones, that happens quite a lot. And it may be that there's some worry that that might be the case with GO as well, that, you know, you don't start with a clear plan. Then when you transfer risk to private sector partners in the construction period, they kind of fall among themselves, fall out among themselves because they're, you know, who's going to bear the risk? And there wasn't a clear plan to start with. Do you give a bit of a sense of how we're looking at both the Ontario line expansion, well, the whole Ontario line and the GO expansion, the structure of those projects? and what have we learned from earlier projects? Yeah, and I have my colleague, because I work really closely with Minister McCarthy on the execution of a lot of this, and we've learned Minister McCarthy with the entire infrastructure budget over $200 billion, our part $100 billion with respect to transit and highways. I would say the number one, you've already kind of mentioned it, the number one learning from the crosstown was the structure of the contracts. And I think that's really, really important for us. As we've moved forward, we've listened to industry, we've chatted, we've done kind of the study as to why, you know, what were the challenges with Eglinton, the Crosstown project? Why did it take so long? Where were the delays? And I think, you know, the proof is in the Ontario line right now. We've got, you know, tunnel boring machines that are being assembled at exhibition. We've got another one that is almost completed construction. We've got construction on every part of the line. And every one of our stations on the southern portion of the Ontario line has already been excavated. Like we are moving at lightning speed with respect to the Ontario line. And a lot of it has to do because we've learned from the contracts like the Finch West LRT or the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, where very, very much P3 models of the past. The new progressive models, the Alliance models obviously brings a more collaborative approach. you shared that you know government will inherently take a bit more of the risk with respect to the building and also with respect to some of the cost on it but it helps us get these projects off the ground quicker and faster so i think you know the pace at which the ontario line is moving right now and you know the other almost every single month week we sit down with our team michael lindsey and his team and and and look at the planning of these projects and say where can we save some of that time where can we you know build on some of those opportunities that we've seen in the past with respect to the challenges of getting these lines open and fast i think we also have to recognize that for a very very long time we just never built a lot of transit in this province you know as evidenced by the presentations in the past too comparative to other jurisdictions so there was a huge learning curve you know and i think you now actually have an ecosystem whether it's from a talent perspective or you know the world looking at ontario and saying wow whether it's go expansion or whether it's the Ontario line, the Scarborough subway extension, the west extension on, with respect to Eglinton, the Young North subway extension, which we've already, you know, we've also got our tunnel boring machines that will likely come to Ontario very soon. We've got massive projects, a significant amount of work that's into the ground right now. And I think the world is taking notice of that. We've attracted some of the best talent, but more importantly, we've been able to train a lot of people here in this province to work on these big projects that we didn't have. So, you know, sure, there's been a lot of bumps on the road, but I'm really excited about what the future holds on every single one of these lines. Once we're in the ground, we're moving, we've learned a lot, and we're going to apply those learnings to whether it's Scarborough, whether it's Ontario Line, whether it's the West Extension, the Young North Subway Extension, I think, you know, we're going to see a lot of those learnings applied to the benefit of speed and getting these projects done quickly. Most of it means because speed is money, right? I mean, the more delays you have, the more costs rise and become kind of prohibitive. Yeah, to add to Minister Kerry's points, I completely endorse what he's saying, but we're now having a convergence of different factors. For example, when it came to Eglin Crosstown, we inherited that from a previous government and continued and finished it. It did take a long time. Of course, we always make sure safety is number one priority. But we now have with Scarborough subway extension and Young North, the embracing of the progressive procurement and alliance style models of procurement. That's a big, big change. The mandate of our government, by going early to the people of Ontario for a renewed mandate, we now have a strong, stable majority mandate until 2030. The next election is not until spring 2030. So we have four more years even at this point. And of course, as the Premier has said many times, it's up to government then with that mandate to create the conditions for success. So we're embracing streamlining. We're making sure that we are ending duplication. We're cooperating with the federal government and with the City of Toronto and other municipal governments to make sure that we work together for the citizenry. We all serve together. I don't think anyone has any time for infighting or carping between and among levels of government. That's just not the way forward. And it doesn't get us building things. That's what I see here. So with the new procurement models, for sure, with our new registration first approach on so many fronts. And I think with that sense that the trade and tariff war is frustrating. and as much of an existential threat as it is, has actually united us in common cause to have a sense of urgency to get things done. That's what I mean by the convergence of all these factors is going to be a recipe for success right here in Toronto and Ontario. It might be worth sort of just describing the alliance model a little bit because just so everybody in the audience is familiar with it, because it sounds intuitive that there would be an alliance model when you've got contractor, multiple subcontractors and so on. I think what was interesting historically is that the infrastructure Ontario model of P3 delivery of projects was so successful for quite a long time on courthouses and hospitals and that kind of infrastructure. Then when it kind of moved into transit, I think there was a sense that too much risk was being transferred or there was a sense that that risk wasn't properly transferred. And that's where you started to get, I think, a lot of these convulsions between the partners, which we saw on Crosstown. And we don't want to see ever repeated because it slowed down so much and raised costs. But so how does the alliance, just in some simple terms, how do you define or describe the alliance model? Because I think people need to be aware that if this is going to be a big breakthrough, which I think it is, people should understand kind of what it means. Well, I think it's the confidence about how risk is assessed and transferred, obviously, and how it's shared. That's the key way forward. Because this has to be a partnership. Government doesn't build these things. The private sector builds these things and does it best. So it's not that government needs to get out of the way, but government needs to be a partner. And a partner that creates those conditions that make it possible and to make it faster. So our legislation that we have tabled and more to come about building faster and smarter, streamlining. And that even brings in my environmental path because the idea that a permit should take just for species at risk, for example, 36 months is unacceptable. So we are moving toward a registration first permit by rule approach, which means when you're shovel ready, register and get going. That's very, very important. And then, again, the conditions that we've seen. We have interprovincial trade. I don't think most of us realized how restrictive interprovincial trade was. We're opening up our own provincial borders with an MOU between and among Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. That's huge. Nationally, we've launched the feasibility study as acting infrastructure minister. I launched the feasibility study for the Canada East-West Energy Corridor in the north. That's huge. That's that sense of energy self-sufficiency, which used to be a dream of many decades ago. Now it's a must more than ever before with the geopolitical situation that we've recognized. And then working together, you know, Toronto is not an island. Darlington, in my riding of Durham, is the home of the first small modular reactor. And it's been built very, very quickly. With that, we will have the cable under Lake Ontario coming from Durham to Toronto to power the newly revitalized Toronto waterfront. That's very, very important. Line three. Right? Yeah. Well, that's very helpful. In fact, I'm glad you mentioned the species at risk because, again, I mean, very important piece of legislation. And we all want to protect endangered species. But I think it would be generally recognized that the Ontario approach was very onerous. And I remember, you know, when I was in government, you'd be planning a project and someone would discover a bobble link, you know, and everything would stop for years or a bat, you know, of some kind. And and the question was, how do we deal with that? And we dealt with it in a very onerous, lengthy way, a very expensive way. And I think that really had a big impact on the ability to move forward quickly with projects. So I think you found the right balance now. So it's all about balance. It's all about bats. Well, you know, the first time in our new Species Conservation Act, the purpose of the act is not just protection of species and core habitats, but it's also balancing that with social and economic factors. It's hard to believe that was not one of the purposes of the act, but it wasn't. Now we'll have that balance, right? Hence the registration first model. I think that's a long time coming, and congratulations on that. And Minister Zakaria, you know, one of the things you just mentioned earlier was the fact that on the Ontario Line project, you're doing a lot at once. And I know when we did a report called The Price of Progress a year or so ago, looking at the cost of transit build in Toronto versus other major cities around the world, it was approaching a billion dollars a kilometer here in Toronto. But in Europe, in Barcelona, in Paris, in London, in Istanbul, in Milan, it was like $200 million a kilometer. And when we sort of tried to unpack all of that, one of the big reasons was what you just said that we did episodic projects and you know you have start stop start stop as opposed to continuous flow and doing a lot at once so that you're building tunnels all at once you're building stations all at once you're not just going sequentially and uh that sounds like a you know we've learned a real lesson uh as from from the way you've described it and i think that could really be a big a bit of a game changer in how fast we deliver this yeah and i think there's you know other comparatives you know we can dig into kind of the differences between Toronto or Ontario and other jurisdictions. But, you know, whether it's anywhere in Europe, they've built a ton of the, you know, underground infrastructure that's needed, right? When we're building the Ontario line, the downtown relief line, we're going through some of the most dense, oldest parts of the city that we've never, no one's, no one knows what's underneath, right? We don't want to know. And we don't want to know. And so, you know, when you look at the complexity of what we have to go through underground and, You know, the engineers that we have working on, they're truly world class. And you look at other jurisdictions across the world that already have very sophisticated, integrated underground systems. They have that expertise, the experience. You know, you can't really compare. It's not an apples to apples comparison. But, you know, I think we've made some significant progress. And to some of the points that Minister McCarthy was making as well on the alliance model, when we have these big projects, you can break them up into different, You have different projects tendered to different companies, construction companies, but also that sharecruits. You never know what's going to happen, what's going to come up underneath, you know, even on the Ontario line. You know, we've had a variety of instances where we have had, you know, delays. We all know the Osgood Hall delay that happened three months because of, you know, unfortunately, some trees that individuals didn't want cut down. Injunctions were, you know, that cost us, I think, three months on that project too. finding remains after excavating at Queen Street Station, which then also results in a trigger of events that have to be cleared before you can proceed. Or even the Moss Park Station, we had archaeological challenges there. So that being said, there's so many different challenges that can come up when you're digging underground, when you're doing these projects, But ultimately, these alliance models, the nature of being able to share risk do cost a bit more. But ultimately, they get the project done and shovels in the ground, as we've witnessed both in Skyborough, Ontario, and some of our other projects. And doing a lot at once as well, as I just mentioned, I think is important. I mean, when you look at nuclear, I mean, I always look at, you know, and we've been quite seized of this at the board. but when we look at the refurbishments at Darlington and Bruce, and you see that now at Darlington, they were ahead of schedule and under their cost, which is very rare for nuclear projects. But the reason was they used the same teams and they moved sequentially from Bruce to Darlington without really a pause. And so you didn't have to scale up anew and you got all of the kind of muscle memory from one to the next, which is what you see in transit in Europe. and so I think if we're moving in that direction that would be great I mean it takes you actually to this neighborhood and you know the waterfront LRT East the waterfront East hour LRT which of course we would love to see here because we get we've got a lot of bottlenecks you know here in this in this part of the city and again I think right now we know that it's coming we think it's coming but we don't really know when and we don't know you know whether it's going to be fully funded or how it's going to be funded. So that causes that sense of a lack of a continuous stream, which is so helpful to the planning process. Yeah, sorry, yeah. And look, we've got, we're always happy to have the discussions with respect to different transit projects across the city, across the province. And, you know, every single one of our projects that we've put into the ground today, whether it's the Ontario Line, Scarborough, the West Extension in Eglinton, the Young Norse Extension, there is no municipal contributions to any of those transit projects. So we as the province have initiated those. We are paying for them thanks to with some help from the federal government. And I see former federal transportation minister here as well, Minister Omar. So, you know, we've had a great working relationship with many of our federal colleagues on getting these projects built and getting some dollars to build it. So we'll continue to work through that. I think there's a great case for the waterfront project as well, given, as you said, the challenges around this and the slated development that is coming along here and the Toronto portlands. A $975 million tri-government investment in what was underused and industrial land, it's going to transform Toronto's waterfront. That's City of Toronto, Providence of Materials, federal government all working together to get that area built and think of the opportunity, East Harbor. Well, East Harbor is going to be a game changer. That's right. This whole area. 14,000 new housing units. Yeah. Tens of thousands of skilled jobs and other offshoots. And that's about transit-oriented communities too, don't forget. Right. And what an opportunity that is in that program of these vibrant, mixed-use new communities. It's more than just the concentration of housing around a transit station, whether it's a subway station or a go station, but it's also about communities that include shops, daycare, people can live, work, and play literally right where they are and be close to transit. And then you get that seamless GTA, GTHA, Toronto transit line with the OneFair program that Minister Sarkaria announced as a new transportation minister. Well, I want to talk a bit about that, actually. I mean, the OneFair program, which, as I say, we pushed for for a long time at the Board of Trade, and we were so happy when you announced it. And I think it's cost me. I think people realize how much the provincial government actually underwrites that program. Right. It's a huge benefit. But I think it's cost like 200 million dollars. And I would say money very well spent given what it's been able to accomplish. But maybe you want to talk a little bit about that in terms of the ridership, because if you transfer without additional fare from go to TTC, from my way, go and that kind of thing. It's it. I think it's been really significant. But yeah. Yeah, and then the numbers change every day because obviously there's the transfers happening, but we had about $72 million was the last NASH that I got of transfers, so that translates into over $220 million of savings. You know, think about an individual that is going to work every single day. Let's take Mississauga Transit, gets on to a GO train, or, you know, takes a GO train, gets onto the TTC. That's almost $6 in their pocket every single day if they're not getting charged that TTC fare or if they're on the bus getting on to the Go Transit, getting charged that extra fare. So we translated it roughly to about $1,600 if you're working a full-time job and you're using transit to each person every single day. And I think that's been huge for individuals and families. I speak to many students who have been able to use it. It allows people to get on onto these transit systems with more confidence. It makes it more accessible. But I'll bring it back to more of the presentation we were having earlier. How do we then roll this out to more of an integrated fare structure? I think that's the next step. Well, service as well. And service, absolutely. We see a lot of funny circumstances where there's one transit agencies aren't talking to each other, in some cases, not all. And you've got a stop here, and the other municipality takes over, the region takes over, and they've got to stop the 200 meters away, and there's just no coordination or integration between fares or even service levels. And I think that's probably the next big opportunity for us, and you've alluded to it in the presentation as well, and I've alluded to the fact that European countries do that really well. Integrated scheduling. And so if we can build towards more of that integrated, I think it builds on that one fair, the concept of one fair across the region. And whether you're going to be coming in from Durham, whether you're going to be coming in from Peel, Kitchener, wherever it is, I think this is the next big step on the transit journey for us and something that we're really interested in exploring. One piece of infrastructure that doesn't get a lot of commentary, but I think is very important in terms of easing the congestion crisis in the Toronto region, is a piece of infrastructure. um technology infrastructure so smart signaling so you know you're driving into toronto you're driving in mississauga you're driving in brampton you're at a you're on a major roadway you come to a stop a stoplight there's really very little cross traffic but you're waiting you're waiting you're waiting you come to the next one you're waiting you're waiting you're waiting and so your stop times are much longer than they probably need to be around the world uh cities are adopting this smart signaling technology, AI-enabled, real-time signaling that changes depending on the traffic flow, the cross-traffic flow. We've done a few pilots in Toronto, but we haven't gone much beyond that. One of the major companies, interestingly, that is delivering this across the world, but across North America, is an Ontario company from KW that really is doing really well in the U.S., but trying to get contracts here. typical Canadian story. Now we hear they may have to move to the U.S. because if they're going to get U.S. contracts, government-funded contracts, it needs to be under the new rules of U.S., of American content. They really may have to move from here unless they get some contracts here. So I'm not going to call out the company, but it just sounds like one of those typical Canadian stories where we've got the technology, we really need the technology, but no one has the money to deploy it, and it would make such a huge difference to travel in our region. So I'm just putting that on the table because you have to give your head a shake sometimes, and you say, well, why have we been so slow? And I'm not blaming you. I'm just saying, for example, the city has been very slow on this, and yet it would make a big difference, I think. Yeah, no, I think, I know the company you're referencing, MyOVision, I believe it is. They're a wonderful Canadian startup, done amazing things, had a chance to tour their facility and speak with their team there as well. And, you know, a lot of that comes under municipal infrastructure with respect to the traffic lights and the systems. But I think it generally speaks to the need for us to do more to integrate our systems across across Ontario. So major cities. Yeah, those are quick wins that we can all look to have. So, you know, I encourage some of our municipal partners to definitely look at MileVision and the technology that they have. But you're right. They're blowing up in the U.S. and we need to do a better job of supporting Ontario, a whole-paid company. Yeah, and it strikes me that it's infrastructure. It is infrastructure. It's technology infrastructure. And therefore, the ability to amortize the cost over, you know, over 10 years or more can help defray that sort of sense of upfront. Well, we do have the new Buy Ontario Act, which we just passed in the Legislative Assembly at the end of the year. This prioritizes Ontario procurement for public sector opportunities and investments. Which is great. Yeah, and obviously other provinces secondarily, but Ontario and Canada first. And that is a result of the trade and tariff war, obviously. Absolutely. So it's terrific. Ministers, we're out of time. So thank you very much. I want to have a wide look at it because this is a big project. We don't talk about it as much. But don't forget, we had the Eglinton cross down. We had the Finch cross down. And we're going to have the Northlander, which is going to connect Toronto to the north. Yeah. And we're in testing right now. So whether you can get from Toronto all the way up to Timmins with a connection to Cotter. Take the train. That's going to be announced in northern Ontario. That's a big transit project. The tourism potential of that, I think, is enormous. Thank you. So well done on that. Thank you very much. Jake, before you go, now... Thanks for listening to Toronto Talks, conversations with the leaders shaping the region's economy. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts.