Shuttle buses may not be replacing streetcars along a portion of the busy 501 Queen route for as long as initially thought.
TTC officials had previously estimated that it would take another 20 months to complete the installation of streetcar tracks along Adelaide Street and allow for the diversion of the 501 route around subway construction without the need for shuttle buses.
But on Friday members of the city’s general governance committee voted to hand Midome Construction Services Ltd. a nearly $40 million sole-source contract with the understanding that they will complete the work by March,2024.
Shuttle buses will still be required to supplement service along the 501 Queen route for about 10 months, starting in May.
This is due to the long-term closure of Queen Street between York and Bay streets to accommodate Ontario Line construction.
The sole-source contract, which still needs to be approved by city council, was proposed by staff after it became clear that Metrolinx would not be able to complete the track work prior to the beginning of construction on Queen Street.
The provincial transit agency had initially committed to complete the work necessary to divert a downtown portion of the 501 Queen route along Adelaide and Richmond streets for the four years that the Queen Street closure is required.
However, in a report tabled at the TTC board last week staff said that a utility issue was identified that “surpassed previous expectations and has delayed the start of the construction of the streetcar tracks for the diversion.”
Midome Construction Services Ltd. is being asked to complete 570 metres of streetcar track installation, in part, because they are already contracted to handle watermain replacement work in the area.
“This demonstrates to us how utterly devastating the mistake was when we handed construction and transit planning up to the province of Ontario,” Coun. Gord Perks said during Friday’s meeting. “We made an agreement with them that they would provide a streetcar diversion while the work on Queen Street was taking place. They looked at it, they discovered that it was actually hard to build and construct streetcar tracks in an urban area and they panicked and said ‘let’s run buses instead.’ But the TTC, who actually do understand how to deliver transit in an urban area, said that was unacceptable and not only did they come up with an alternative, they found an existing contract to do sewer work and found a way to piggyback doing the diversion into that contract.”
The 15-stop, 15.6-kilometre Ontario Line will run from Exhibition Place through the downtown core along Queen Street before heading north to the Ontario Science Centre. It is currently scheduled to be completed by 2031.
