Bad decision-making, poor consultation contribute to St. Clair streetcar debacle

DAVID NICKLE

January 20, 2010

City councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong is calling for resignations at the top of the Toronto Transit Commission following the release of a report detailing cost and time overruns on the St. Clair streetcar right-of-way project.

"Quite frankly the TTC management group is not being paid to learn on the job," said Minnan-Wong at Wednesday's meeting of the Toronto Transit Commission. "This is why through careful consideration I'm calling today for the resignation of the chair and the chief general manager. The chair laughs, but I tell the public this: there has to be accountability. Someone has to take responsibility."

Minnan-Wong made the statements as the commission was dealing with a forensic report looking in to what went wrong with the St. Clair line - and how the city can do better when it constructs similar, longer light rail lines in the Transit City project.

According to a report from transportation experts Les Kelman and Richard Soberman, the 6.8-kilometre project was marred by open-ended public consultation, poor central oversight and decisions to add to the project mid-stream.

The project, which the city began in 2004, was intended to make a 6.8-kilometre grade-separated streetcar line running from Yonge Street to Gunn's Road along St. Clair.

Originally budgeted for $48 million, it has wound up costing $106 million. The project won't be finished until June.

The reasons, according to Soberman and Kelman, were many. First, the city failed to properly define the scope of the project.

"Construction commenced in the absence of a comprehensive design of what was to be constructed," the report reads. "Long after the start of the construction, project scope definition continued almost as a 'moving target,' contributing in the process to cost escalation, schedule delay, and a large number of complaints about community disruption from affected residents and businesses."

Because the project had no central organization, the report charges that it became impossible to manage costs and schedule.

"Under conditions where there is no single entity responsible for the entire project, co-ordination is complicated by the lack of clear lines of authority and it is more difficult to ensure effective schedule control," the report reads.

As well, the project was completed with 20 small contractors rather than large ones. The strategy might have been to complete the project in stages - but in fact it may have contributed to slowing it down.

"Delays resulted from the complexity of co-ordinating a large number of independent, yet inter-dependent activities," the report read.

The report also faulted the community consultation process and accused the Ontario Ministry of the Environment of being "too accommodating" to naysayers in the community.

"The Ontario Minister of the Environment was simply far too accommodating of matters raised by those opposed to the project, matters that, with some degree of resolve, should have been addressed directly," according to the report. "As a result, inordinate attention and resources were devoted to dealing with individuals whose main interest was to ensure that the project would not proceed."

The objections ultimately led to a judicial review that put a stop to construction for eight months.

"The domino effect â?¦ essentially introduced significant construction delay which was one of the main causes of considerable criticism by, and hardship for, affected residents and businesses," said the report.

The authors were optimistic that many of the problems experienced in St. Clair won't affect the new transit lines being constructed along Sheppard, Eglinton and Finch Avenues.

The environmental assessments have been streamlined - and the scope of the projects have been worked out in advance. As well, the project is being managed from a single office and common standards have been established.

And contractors will have to go through a pre-qualification process, so delays resulting from insufficiently prepared small contractors should be minimized.

The TTC has also established an office to deal with communications for Transit City.

St. Paul's councillor and vice-chair of the Toronto Transit Commission Joe Mihevc was a consistent supporter of the St. Clair line. He said the critique is a fair one.

"This is a sign of a mature organization - a healthy ability to critique itself," he said. "Personally, I've taken it in the teeth on this one from all over the place. I've appreciated that in the TTC, they want to learn from this. They're making the changes."

Minnan-Wong, meanwhile, said he's going to pursue the resignation of TTC Chair Giambrone and TTC Chief General Manager Gary Webster with a motion at Toronto Council - even though neither men were in their positions when the project was begun.

"Given past practises I'm very concerned that we're moving forward - letting mismanagement go forward with the Sheppard LRT and the Eglinton LRT. That's a project of over $5 billion," he said.

Giambrone dismissed Minnan-Wong's call for resignations.

"I don't respond to Denzil's calls - he can make any comments he wants," said Giambrone.