Mayor Jim Watson says the suggestion that the City should delay a crucial vote on Stage 2 of LRT is “asinine.”
The Mayor was in Toronto Tuesday, for a meeting with Premier Doug Ford, where a verbal commitment on Provincial funding for Stage Two was reportedly made.
He was asked by Postmedia's Brian Lilley about comments made by Gloucester Southgate councillor Diane Deans, who said she feels like council is being asked to “rubber stamp” a contract without adequate time to consult the public, especially in light of new cost estimates and timelines.
Lilley provided a recording of the conversation with Watson to CFRA.
“The public are very much on board,” Watson said. “They gave me a strong mandate of over 71 per cent of the vote. My platform was to move forward with stage two […] The notion that we are going to go and ask the public, ‘Well, why don’t we just not have phase two,’ is absolutely asinine.”
Council is expected to vote March 6 on the plan to award the contract to build the next step of the city’s massive light rail project, but learned just last Friday that Stage 2 would not only be up to two years later than expected, but would also cost over a billion dollars more than originally projected.
Watson says there has been some confusion about the new cost estimate, with accusations that the project is already over-budget.
“No, no, it’s over the estimate,” Watson said. “The budget is what we set. When we go out to tender, we have a rough idea of what the bids are gonna come in, but you don’t have an exact idea until the document is open, the seal is open.”
Speaking on the CTV News at Noon with Michael O’Byrne Tuesday, Deans said it feels like Council is being placed in a box.
“I think it’s very disrespectful to both council and to the public to put us in that kind of a square box where we has such small opportunity to consult the public and to consider the very complex financial issues that are in that document,” she said. “It’s really asking us to be a rubber stamp by not giving us the opportunity to fully consult the public and fully have our questions asked and answered.”
Another worry, Deans added, is the lack of real world experience this city has with LRT.
“Stage 1 is not up and running,” she said. “I think it would be useful to have that up and running and see the ridership numbers before we go headlong into Stage 2.”
But according to the mayor, Stage 1 makes no sense without Stage 2.
“You have to have phase two in order for the system to work. Otherwise, it’s a stunted, twelve-kilometer system that is going to clog in the Tunney’s Pasture area and at Blair Station,” Watson said. “To simply say, ‘Well, let’s go and muse about not going ahead with phase two because the estimate is over what we predicted,’ just doesn’t make any sense.”
Deans says she and some of her south-end council colleagues will be holding a public meeting at the Jim Durrell Arena at 6:00 p.m. Thursday so that the public can offer feedback on the project.
With files from Postmedia’s Brian Lilley.