CANADA: Detailed design work is pressing ahead for a light rail line to serve Toronto’s eastern Waterfront district, following the signing of an accord between the federal government and the province of Ontario aimed at unlocking housing development in the fast-growing city.
The light rail line is intended to serve the Port Lands redevelopment zone around the former docklands and a new island called Ookwemin Minising at the mouth of the Don River. According to the Waterfront Toronto development authority, Waterfront East Transit will provide ‘a critical piece of infrastructure needed to help revitalise Toronto’s eastern waterfront’.
‘The project will unlock new neighbourhoods, connect people to jobs and destinations, and provide the certainty needed to deliver thousands of new homes’, the authority explained. This would help to address Toronto’s housing needs while enabling long-term growth.
Serving an area south of the city’s busy King and Queen streetcar routes and to the east of Union Station, Waterfront East Transit is expected to support the development of approximately 75 000 homes and serve more than 150 000 residents and workers.
Initial projections suggest that the line would carry around 50 000 passengers/day, ‘connecting into a broader transport network that includes new roads, trails, bridges, and streetcars’. Detailed design is reported to be around 60% complete.
Funding
Current estimates have put the total cost of planning and building the light rail line at around C$3bn, with the national, provincial and city governments each contributing one-third.
The national share will come from the portion of the Canada Public Transit Fund designated for projects in Ontario. However, a condition of the funding agreement is that the federal and Ontario governments would not cover any cost overruns.
According to Waterfront Toronto, the light rail project and related developments are expected to create more than 100 000 jobs and generate more than C$13·2bn in economic value, ‘delivering lasting economic impact locally, provincially, and nationally’.