Toronto Mayor John Tory announced he’d have to make “terrible and devastating” cuts if the federal and provincial governments didn’t pony up cash to help the city fill its $1.5-billion budgetary void left in the wake of COVID-19.
Astonishingly, after begging for money, the mayor’s pet project, Rail Deck Park, is still going ahead.
Tory’s mega-park scheme is a complex project that would cover 20 acres of empty airspace above the rail corridor on the west side of Toronto’s Union Station. The mayor has been eyeing the vanity project for years, and, with a shot at a third mayoral term, he’s not about to let devastated finances get in the way of his legacy park.
The mayor says the park will cost $1.7 billion, but that price tag will more than double to $3.8 billion, according to a report recently released by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
The city’s estimate excludes a number of relevant costs accounted for in the CTF’s report, such as financing, consulting, and project management costs. The CTF’s $3.8-billion forecast is a conservative estimate because costs that are impossible to calculate now, such as legal and accounting bills, were excluded.