TORONTO – Council has voted to proceed with a public-private partnership to fund the rehabilitation of the aging Gardiner Expressway, which Mayor John Tory says will have the public saying ‘hallelujah.’
The P3 model is used for projects that carry high risk for cost and time overruns and will also cut down projected construction timelines from 20 to six years.
“Public sector projects … have repeatedly and consistently been massively over budget and way out of time schedule and I don’t think we can afford to continue that way,” said Tory.
“What we are doing here with some additional cost – I admit that – is buying insurance for an on time, on budget completion of that project.”
READ MORE: Gardiner construction ahead of schedule, complete by summer 2016: Tory
Council voted 30-10 to go ahead with the P3 funding model, which is estimated to cost $3.8 billion.
“As a really big bonus, the fact is you get it years earlier to avoid the headaches of traffic congestion,” said Tory.
“I think the public will say hallelujah that’s why it received an overwhelming support at city council.”
The covers all of the needs of the Gardiner that have previously be identified, including the construction of the hybrid option, operations and maintenance costs for a 30-year period after construction is completed.
READ MORE: Gardiner Expressway ‘hybrid’ plans start to take shape, but are more expensive
Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong said the private sector is encouraged to build on time and on budget with the P3 model.
“The city, quite frankly has a horrible record of building infrastructure projects on time and on budget. It seems like there is always delay and we can never build anything on budget,” Minnan-Wong said.
“There will be penalties built in to incentivize the contract and make sure that when they make a promise, they keep that promise and it would be our job to hold that to them.”
Through the P3 model, the city can apply to receive $820 million in funding from the federal government through the P3 Canada Fund and would drop the city costs from $3.8 billion to $3 billion.
The city is expected to get confirmation on federal funding in 2016, when then will report back to council with more details.
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