After a two-month break, bus rapid transit is about to re-enter the spotlight in London.
An updated business case for London’s Bus Rapid Transit plan will be debated Monday by the strategic priorities and policy committee.
The new business case comes two months after city council finalized routes for the controversial plan. Council decided May 16 to modify the plan to remove a proposed tunnel under Richmond Row, choosing to put dedicated bus lanes along Richmond Street at-grade instead.
Councillors decided to abandon the 900-metre tunnel after the estimated cost nearly doubled from $90 million to $170 million. Councillors also decided to go with a couplet on King Street and Queens Avenue. Councillors moved one of the two proposed BRT lines from King to Queens.
Council decided in late May to ask city staff to talk to CN and CP about the possibility of sharing existing rail lines inside the city in a bid to alleviate the problem. Staff is scheduled to report back on those talks in the fall.
The updated business case and master plan includes a new cost estimate for the project. City staff now estimate the cost to be $500 million, $60 million more than the previous estimate of $440 million that was associated with the at-grade level crossing on Richmond but also $60 million less than the estimated cost of the plan with the tunnel. The new $500-million cost includes a 50 per cent contingency.
With the revised project cost in place, city hall will now seek an additional $120 million in federal and provincial funding. The revised business plan means the construction period has changed and the capital plan and forecast will be revised through the 2018 budget update to reflect the increased funding requirement from the federal and provincial governments.
London has committed $130 million towards the project, with the money coming from development charges. However, staff say new provincial regulations for development charges recovery for transit projects may change the growth/non-growth splits based on the new scale of the project and ridership, but the impact is unknown at this time.
The city has hired a consultant to provide the methodology for development charges rate calculation purposes, a process that is expected to take a few months.
Both the federal and provincial governments have expressed a willingness to fund transit projects in the past. The federal government has said it will cover up to 40 per cent of certain project costs through the Public Transit Infrastructure Fund and Green Infrastructure Fund Stream.
The provincial government has set up what it called the “Moving Ontario Forward” program which includes up to $15 billion for municipal infrastructure projects outside of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. Staff note Ontario’s 2017 budget included a formal commitment to advance London’s Rapid Transit initiative.
Once city council approves the master plan and business case, the environmental assessment process will continue following the Transit Project Assessment Process.
The 24-kilometre BRT network will see the high-frequency buses run along L and 7 shaped corridors inside the city. Buses will run from Oxford and Wonderland Road in the west, to White Oaks Mall in the south and from Masonville Place in the north to Fanshawe College in the east, with both corridors running through the downtown.
The business case also includes a preliminary cost estimate of the Adelaide grade separation project, which is now estimated at $60 million. Back in May, council decided to speed up the implementation of the grade separation so that it’s implemented before the northern corridor for BRT is in place.
Comments