“The mismanagement of the Gardiner Expressway renovation is part of a larger pattern where Torontonians have come to expect endless construction delays and cost overruns that ultimately compromise the quality of life in our city,” writes Councillor Brad Bradford.
“The mismanagement of the Gardiner Expressway renovation is part of a larger pattern where Torontonians have come to expect endless construction delays and cost overruns that ultimately compromise the quality of life in our city,” writes Councillor Brad Bradford.
Brad Bradford is º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøcity councillor for Beaches-East York.
Anyone who has done a home renovation understands that a failure to plan upfront leads to costly delays and disruption. The same principle applies to major infrastructure projects, except millions of people feel the impacts when the government doesn’t deliver.
Nearly four months after the Gardiner Expressway rebuild began, commuters are still stuck in traffic and crying out for solutions to shorten an expected three years of gridlock and delay. The impacts cannot be overstated: commute times have increased by 250 per cent during rush hour. Congestion is choking our economy, it’s killing our small businesses and it takes longer for you to get home to your family.
This week at city council, we are expecting a report that responds to asking to accelerate work on the Gardiner through 24/7 construction, looking at off-site modular assembly and minimizing construction on parallel routes.
I’m hopeful the report will recommend changes needed to expedite the project, but it will result in higher costs than if they were part of the original construction plan. We might be anticipating another bail out from the province, covering the costs associated with project acceleration, but it’s still taxpayers on the hook for more money because of poor planning and prioritization at city hall.
It’s shocking that a project this important did not adequately account for traffic impacts and prioritize finishing the job faster. It should be the most fundamental piece of planning for highway construction, but the plan vastly underestimated the economic and social impacts that the Gardiner gridlock has caused.
The mismanagement of the Gardiner is part of a larger pattern where Torontonians have come to expect endless construction delays and cost overruns that ultimately compromise the quality of life in our city.
A major project being completed on-time in º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøis practically unheard of. — the largest multi-modal transit hub in Canada, used by 300,000 commuters every day — took over a decade and experienced major cost overruns.
One of the city’s premier tourist attractions, St. Lawrence Market, has been under redevelopment since 2016 and is still running into delays and cost overruns. This month, city council is being asked to approve another $9.5 million in emergency spending, bringing the initial project cost of $44 million to a staggering $128 million.
As we look ahead to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the pattern is being repeated. Costs have already increased by $80 million and additional projects and requirements are being added to the scope on the fly.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
As the city struggles to get even the most fundamental infrastructure projects right, many people are already sounding the alarm bells around Mayor Olivia Chow’s plan to create a new bureaucratic entity to build housing. The public builder model would see the city assume all of the financial risk for building new social housing, while trying to manage and co-ordinate complex construction timelines and supply chains with very little expertise or experience.
It does not have to be this way. In order to break this pattern, our city’s leadership should do three things:
• Prioritize the impact on people’s daily lives. Issues like congestion must weigh more heavily when planning major construction, as well as sequencing projects to ensure that not every parallel route is tied up at the same time.
• Get the scope and approach right. Plan effectively at the outset so that costly and time-consuming changes are not needed midstream.
• Actively manage the project. City leadership must hold project teams accountable for results. Without strong oversight, scope creep, delays and budget overruns become unavoidable.
In order to restore public trust in its ability to deliver big things, º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøCity Hall must fix its approach. After all, if you can’t trust a contractor to pave your driveway on time, you’re not going to trust them with building a new house.
Brad Bradford is º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøcity councillor for Beaches-East York.
Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details
To join the conversation set a first and last name in your user profile.
Sign in or register for free to join the Conversation