The Ontario government has officially broken ground on the future three-stop Scarborough Subway extension which will deliver better, faster, and more reliable transit that the people of Greater Toronto Area need.
“This long overdue project will create thousands of jobs, significantly increase ridership capacity and cut down daily travel times for more than a hundred thousand Scarborough commuters,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said.
The project is estimated to support as many as 3,000 jobs annually during construction and unlock better access to employment spaces, schools and other key destinations throughout the city for Scarborough residents.
In May, the Ontario province announced that Strabag consortium won a fixed-price contract of CAD 757.1 million (USD 616.3 million) to design, build and finance the tunnel for the Scarborough metro project. The consortium comprises Arup Canada and Brian Isherwood & Associates Ltd as the design team.
To expedite work on the extension, tunnelling for the 7.8-km extension from Kennedy Station to McCowan Road and Sheppard Avenue will take place first. Advanced tunneling will be followed by contracts for the balance of the work.
The metro line will extend the Toronto Transit Commission’s (TTC) Line 2 7.8 km further into Scarborough, with stations at Lawrence Avenue and McCowan Road, Scarborough Centre, and Sheppard Avenue and McCowan Road.
It is expected that the extension will provide an estimated 38,000 people with walking distance access to rapid transit and see 105,000 daily boardings by 2041. The extension will reduce the number of vehicle kilometres travelled during rush hour by 30,000 km, significantly reducing traffic congestion and road-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 10,000 tonnes annually.
The “groundbreaking is an important step forward in getting the Scarborough Subway Extension built. This delivers on a commitment made by the City, provincial and federal governments to the residents of Scarborough,” John Tory, the Mayor of Toronto said.
The project is part of a CAD 28.5 billion (USD 23.2 billion) investment announced by the province to modernise and expand the transit system in Greater Toronto Area. In addition to the Scarborough Subway extension, the plan includes the all-new Ontario Line, the Eglinton Crosstown West extension and the Yonge North Subway extension.
In May, the Canadian Government agreed to pay 40 per cent share, up to CAD 10.7 billion (USD 8.7 billion), of Ontario’s four nationally significant metro projects. The Ontario budget for 2021, outlines the province’s investment of CAD 61.6 billion (USD 50 billion) over 10 years to build new and expanded transit infrastructure across Ontario.
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