Toronto's auditor general will look into Scarborough Subway complaint

Feb 22 2017, 2:41 am

While a recent report indicated that rider satisfaction on the TTC is at 77%, it is not necessarily the case in the city’s east end.

Last week, members of the transit advocacy group, Scarborough Transit Action (STA), met with Toronto’s Auditor General to lodge a complaint against the TTC. The complaint was regarding a lack of evidence-based decision-making for the Scarborough Subway Extension.

According to a press release, the group alleges that political gain, not sound transit planning and economic criteria, have driven the decision-making process. As a result, Council has never had the benefit of full, accurate and unbiased information with which to guide decisions on which technology will be used to replace the aging Scarborough RT.

The group has since asked the Auditor General, Beverly Romeo-Beehler, to investigate the City’s decision making process, and to determine if the City, and the Mayor’s office, properly exercised their responsibilities for stewardship of public funds.

“It’s time we shine a light on what is really going on at city hall,” said Brenda Thompson, STA Chair, in the release. “Especially now, with Toronto’s budgetary constraints, the public needs assurance that we are providing the most rapid transit to the most number of transit riders, especially transit riders in our underserved neighbourhoods.”

Last summer, a TTC briefing note was leaked regarding the Scarborough subway extension. In the note, TTC project manager, Rick Thompson, said that the cost would be closer to $2.7 billion due to redesigning Kennedy Station and a new environmental assessment.

“We think that from the beginning the process has been guided more by political goals than value for money,” said STA member Khalidha Nasiri in the release. “We are concerned, for example, that the conclusions in the TTC Briefing Note were based on inaccurate assumptions about the LRT option, in order to justify moving ahead with the Scarborough Subway Extension.”

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