Metrolinx writing off $504M spent on now-useless signalling upgrades: report
Metrolinx has determined that over $500 million worth of signalling infrastructure upgrades at Union Station won't be compatible with changing plans to expand GO train service at the central hub, according to the provincial transit agency's annual report.
Union Station updates no longer compatible, CEO says it's cost of GO train expansion
Metrolinx is writing off over $500 million it spent on signalling upgrades that are no longer required, with CEO Michael Lindsay saying it's part of the cost of updated plans to expand GO train services.
Upgrades on hundred-year-old signalling infrastructure around Union Station began in 2013, but were paused in 2023 when the transit agency discovered it might be incompatible with changing plans to expand GO services, according to Metrolinx's annual report released this week.
This year, Metrolinx determined most of the upgrades would now be redundant, and $504 million already spent on them will be written off, the report said. Total capital asset write-offs in the report totalled about $570 million.
"This really is a part of the cost associated with meeting the ambition and the mission that we've been given to bring GO Expansion and service levels to the place where they should be for this region," Lindsay told the Metrolinx board of directors at its meeting Thursday.
While some of the upgrades will still be part of the new expansion plans, he said, Union Station will have to redesign tracks and platforms in a way that makes most new signalling infrastructure unusable.
GO Expansion facing 'uncertainty,' report says
But the GO Expansion project itself now faces uncertainty over continued government funding for the "full program," including money for electrification, the report said.
Despite what was flagged in the report, Lindsay told reporters Thursday that Metrolinx is "full speed ahead on GO Expansion."
"Every message that I get from the government of Ontario is about how could we expedite the delivery of GO Expansion," he said, adding Metrolinx wouldn't write off hundreds of millions of dollars of legacy infrastructure to enable expansion otherwise.
Still, Metrolinx cut spending on the expansion program last year, the annual report said, spending roughly $1.7 billion, about $570 million less than what was budgeted.
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CBC News reached out to Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria for comment but did not hear back before publication.
In light of the annual report, the provincial NDP's public transit critic renewed the party's call for a public inquiry into the province's transit agency, saying it's continuing to waste public money. MPP Tom Rakocevic noted that the report shows Metrolinx has hired 11 new executives at the same time it's writing off over $500 million dollars.
"The people of Ontario deserve transparency," he said. "This government needs to respect taxpayer dollars and give people the assurances that their money is being well-spent and the projects are being well thought out. And this is not what we are seeing at the present."
The NDP has called for an inquiry into Metrolinx over problems with long-delayed projects like the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, which was operational in February, six years after it was originally scheduled to open.
While a public agency having to eat this much money is a tough pill to swallow, Metrolinx is trying to catch up on upgrading complex rail infrastructure to meet the demands of a growing urban population, all under the guidance of changing governments, says Jeff Casello, a transportation planning and engineering professor at the University of Waterloo.
"The public has a right, I think, absolutely, to question those things," he said. "But I do think that we shouldn't sell short the complexity of the kind of question that Metrolinx is answering and how these things do evolve over time."
