The emotions one feels after learning that the cost of extending the West Toronto Railpath by two kilometres is set to be almost $150 million are somewhat complicated.
On the one hand, this city desperately needs more good cycling infrastructure, both to get more people to travel by bike rather than in cars (we have the worst traffic pretty much anywhere), and to make the trips safer for those who do (more cyclists have been killed on the roads this year than in any other recent one).
And we can particularly use more of this kind of trail, which doesn’t run on the road at all, making it all more peaceful: both the ride itself (no lights, no door prizes, no tricky intersections) and the process of installing the lanes (no complaining about lost parking or narrowed roads). I’ve written before about how the rail-trail pedestrian and cycling path that ran behind my house in Washington, D.C. turned me into a happy bike commuter when I lived there, after I hadn’t previously owned a bike in decades. A network of this kind of pathway can transform how a city commutes — and turn hours of misery into minutes of exercise and joy for those who use them.Â
All of that is true. And, I think, important.
But then, on the other hand: how the heck can it possibly cost $75 million per kilometre to build this, in a corridor that already exists for rail tracks?Â
Even by city construction standards, $150 million is a whackload of cash. For context, the entire city budget in 2024 for maintenance of roads, sidewalks and bike lanes is only $232 million.
Between 2022 and 2023, the city built 37 kilometres of cycle tracks and bike trails and spent a total of $54 million, according to the Star’s Ben Spurr, which amounts to less than $1.5 million per kilometre. This one path is 50 times more expensive than those.
Some of us are old enough to remember the lively debates about whether there should be an LRT or a subway on Sheppard Avenue East that happened back when Rob Ford was mayor. Some of us are still young enough to recall that the estimated cost of building LRTs back then was $75 million per kilometre. That was for constructing a full high-speed transit line with tracks and trains and power supplies and stations.Â
Those of us who have used the existing portion of the West Toronto Railpath might be particularly confused by the comparison. Because while it is fine to ride on to get somewhere, it is not fancy or lush or anything. It’s just a plain, flat pathway, bordered by scrubby lawns and unadorned concrete fencing. Sure, you pass the odd bench or sculpture here and there along the way. But mostly it seems like a laneway that might have wound up there by accident.Â
When this extension was first seriously proposed in 2016, the cost was estimated at $23 million. I know inflation since then has been steep, but most costs haven’t gone up 500 per cent.Â
Defenders of the project’s price tag told Spurr that the four bridges that need to be constructed as part of the path are a big part of the cost. No doubt they are. But are those bridges a surprise? Were we unaware of the need for them when drafting earlier cost estimates? And how much can a simple overpass for bikes and pedestrians across Queen Street possibly cost?
Spurr notes that this year’s budget documents show an increase in cost from the city’s previous projection of $74 million to a new total of $148 million. You don’t need much advanced math to calculate that this is a doubling of the cost from the previous budget, which Spurr says is a “spike attributed in part to Metrolinx administrative costs” (alongside increased construction costs and the cost of relocating utilities).Â
Hard experience won’t exactly inspire confidence in Metrolinx as a construction manager for a city project. (How’s that Eglinton Crosstown LRT coming along? How about the Finch West LRT? Anyone?) Even then, a project’s costs doubling when they take it over raises questions. They are managing the project because they are doing other work on the adjacent rail corridor at the same time. Is the city being asked to now share some of those costs for the rail work or something? What else could explain the jump in price, and the astonishing price itself?
The skeptical city councillors who spoke to the Star this week are right to raise questions. This railpath extension is exactly the kind of project Toronto needs a lot more of. But at this absurd price, it’s hard to see how we can afford to come close to filling that need.
