(The Toronto Star published the following story by Kevin McGran on its website on October 14.)
TORONTO — Transport Minister David Collenette is expected to decide in the next two months on which group will win the contract to bring a high-speed connection between Union Station and Pearson airport.
A private consortium that is one of three groups bidding to build the rail link between the downtown and airport also wants to build a light-rail transit network connecting Toronto to the 905 regions.
The rail link, which would speed passengers between Pearson and downtown in 20 minutes, is expected to carry 77,000 passengers a day.
“The evaluation is in progress and we anticipate an announcement could be made this fall,” said department press secretary Amy Butcher.
The light-rail consortium has been looking to get a foot in the door for at least two years. Aecon, a construction company, ALSTOM, which builds trains, and Borealis, which finances such things, together have been promoting a $2.5 billion project dubbed SmartRide LRT.
It would use mostly hydro right-of-ways and existing rail corridors for a light-rail system that would augment local and GO transit. So far, no level of government has bought into the plan.
Aecon and ALSTOM recently teamed up again, dusted off the LRT proposal and refined it to fit the Union-Pearson rail-link project. This time, it’s called the GTA LRT Consortium. The proponents suggest that light rail is a better fit for the link in terms of easy connections with GO and the Toronto Transit Commission.
“The technology you choose has an impact on what you can actually do with the corridor,” said Stefan Parche, vice-president of development for Aecon Infrastructure.
Picking a single-purpose technology for the link ? one that can’t easily be expanded beyond the original line ? means that “you basically destroy the corridor and prevent it from being used as part of a larger network,” Parche said. “So that needs to be looked at from a GTA system-wide implication.”
The federal government invited four consortia to present proposals for the link.
Two other contenders for the job are Macquarie North America Ltd. and Union Pearson Group Inc. Both groups advocate diesel technology for the engines ? lighter trains than those used by GO Transit but heavier than what GTA LRT Consortium is proposing.
A fourth group, Pearl Consortium, which included Bombardier Transportation, dropped out because the scope of the project changed, said spokesperson Helene Gagnon.
The sticking point was a new requirement that the winning consortium take over the “ridership risk,” so that if ridership fell below expectations or the line failed to make a profit, the company would shoulder the loss with no hope of federal cash.
In industry and political circles, there are doubts that the airport link will ever get off the ground, especially with political changes in the offing. Prime-minister-in-waiting Paul Martin is not believed to be a big backer of it, while Ontario premier-elect Dalton McGuinty may discover more pressing needs.
“In my view, it’s certainly not the top transportation priority of the region,” said Michael Roschlau, president of the Canadian Urban Transit Association.
“To me it would be a shame if public money were used to give that project priority over other projects that are far more important, like the (TTC’s) state of good repair, the ability to increase the capacity of our transit systems in the GTA.”
The rail link will be built with private money, although funding for upgrades in track capacity and bridge improvements needed for the new service will come out of the $435 million in federal funding for urban transportation in the GTA announced in March.