Toronto's financial woes could mean delay of Eglinton LRT and Ontario Line opening

Facing a budget deficit of a whopping $46.5 billion over the coming decade, the City of Toronto and Mayor Olivia Chow have got their work cut out for them in trying to reduce costs and increase revenue during what is now being called an "unprecedented financial crisis."

Among 13 suggested courses of action that staffers put on the table during an Executive Committee meeting last week are a new municipal sales tax, an increase in land transfer taxes for multi-million dollar homes, and permitting the Toronto Parking Authority to charge higher fees for on-street parking, which is currently capped at $5 an hour.

Though these very feasible options were the most widely-reported ones, there are a few parts of the new 192-page long-term financial plan that are quite concerningly being overlooked.

As local political expert and columnist Matt Elliott noted in the latest edition of his City Hall Watcher newsletter, the City Manager and Interim Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer have made a couple of pretty bold recommendations for paths forward, taking aim at the provincial government for not allocating more funding to the city.

Further down the list, we find a few items that feel more dramatic than the aforementioned levies, including, at number 11, a push to potentially refuse to fund the operation of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT and Finch West subway lines that the city is currently on the hook to pay for.

As Elliott illuminated, the document states that "It was never foreseen that these new operating costs would begin in circumstances when the City had such limited capacity to afford them. Deferring the launch of these two transit lines could reduce the 2024 pressure by up to $106 million."

Similarly, item 12 advises that "City Council inform the Province of Ontario that in the absence of a new funding model for transit operations in the City of Toronto... the City will pause negotiation of further funding agreements for Provincial Priority Transit Projects and any future provincial transit expansion projects."

These priority transit projects include the Ontario Line, on which construction has already commenced, most noticeably at Queen and Yonge.

Though these are only proposed ideas for ensuring a better fiscal future at this point, we will have to see which, if any, of the recommendations leadership heeds.

Though there would be inevitable backlash to pressing pause on the decade-plus-in-the-making Eglinton Crosstown LRT or the forthcoming Ontario Line, would anyone in the city really be surprised if a major public transportation project was delayed yet again?