The cost of building the Ontario Line has risen once again and Metrolinx CEO Michael Lindsay says that the total budget will remain “under pressure” amid “one of the worst supply chain shocks” in decades. Lindsay confirmed at an unrelated press conference on Tuesday that the awarding of a $4.32 billion contract for three-kilometres of tunneling underneath Pape Avenue and the construction of two underground stations has pushed the current cost of the Ontario Line to around $34 billion. That is more than three times the original $10.9 billion cost estimate that was first shared for the project back in 2019. Lindsay, however, conceded that the budget remains “under pressure” and said that it will not be possible to provide a total number until a final contract for the Ontario Line’s elevated guideways is handed out. “When the Ontario Line began as a project we lived in a different world with respect to major capital project delivery. We have experienced one of the worst supply chain shocks in the last several decades, trade uncertainty, but I can tell you that the direct costs of every single item on the Ontario Line are competitively bid and we progressively develop these projects with our partners precisely because we want to have that kind of line item scrutiny on the costs,” he said. “Concrete tunnel liners, ceiling tiles, doesn’t matter. At least three bids are coming in. So the direct costs of these projects are being scrutinized and they are being bid competitively.” The Ontario Line was expected to be completed “as early as 2027” when it was first announced but the estimated completion date was later adjusted to 2031. Lindsay then clarified in February that Metrolinx wouldn’t provide a target opening date amid lessons learned from the delayed Eglinton Crosstown line, though he said the project was on track to be completed in the “early 2030s.” At Tuesday’s press conference, Lindsay said that the costs of a wide range of major infrastructure projects “continue to go up” but he said that Metrolinx is doing everything it can to limit costs. “For what its worth it is absolutely true to say that the direct costs of these projects continue to go up, whether it is fighter jets, transit or hospitals or whatever it is,” he said. “We take it very seriously though at Metrolinx that we need to do everything we can to condition those costs and make our expenditures as efficient as they can be for taxpayers.”
