Ontario Line

Yeah, sure.

So I think when we think about the project we're working on here in Toronto on the Ontario Line, that project, as well as three other priority subway projects in Toronto, was initially designed and their alignments were reworked with the specific purpose of looking at TOC and TOD opportunities within each of those different stations.

And so when they looked at where those stations occurred, when they looked at the land that was necessary to deliver the station, they were looking at it not just in what's the minimum amount we need to make a project go, but also what opportunities could we create that would then support a future development.

So in just to the east of downtown Toronto, there's a station called Corktown.

It takes a lot of pre-work.

It takes a lot of identification of, you know, what are the structures, what are the key goals that we want to achieve with this program.

So in the case of, of Ontario Line, the goal was to push for a, a value, you know, maximizing some value opportunities.

But at the same time, as the program has gone on, it's started to incorporate more focus on some of those community benefits and community amenities, so the, the civic spaces, the parks, affordable housing, other things.

You moved to Toronto around the time the Eglinton Crosstown was being worked on, six years behind, between a billion to two billion over budget.

We've seen in the last few weeks news about the Ontario line, that being tripled in cost compared to its budget.

We've seen recent reports in the Globe and Mail that Alto will have a cost of $150 billion.

And then, of course, in North America, we all know the high-speed rail experience in California.

at rudimentary construction and sadly, very poor health and safety for the workers, sadly.

But we built it across the country and through the Rocky Mountains faster than we're able to get something across town in the GTA.

So is Metrolinx, from your standpoint, learning the lessons of Eglinton, Crosstown, the early challenges with the Ontario line? Is the accountability in that agency? Because they seem to have one of the worst records in recent days, recent years in Canada.

So I think that Metrolinx is a real enigma.

And it reached a new milestone, apparently.

They laid the deck of it, but it's going to be years before the Ontario line is active.

So it's going to be years before you're going to see a subway on that bridge.

You know, I was coming down the Don Valley the other day, and I keep noticing at Millwood that there are these towers that are being constructed.

So when I got home, I said, what are these towers, Millwood, Don Valley? And it turns out that's for another bridge across the Don Valley Parkway and the valley itself.

For the Ontario line.

And then I started looking at maps.

And to be perfectly honest, I'm going to have to call my friends at Metrolinx and say, somebody help me out here.

They would have cost $45 to $55 million per station, which is why I guess they didn't do it.

I will say the new Ontario line that's going up that's under construction, those will have... form-fitting platform edge doors.

I'm hoping at some point they retrofit all the stations, spend the money, do it right.

We're supposed to be a global city.