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Metrolinx to provide update on completion target for Eglinton Crosstown

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Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow says she is disappointed that a year after missing its last completion date, Metrolinx cannot even provide a new target date for the opening of the troubled Eglinton Crosstown light rail line.

“Deep sigh,” Chow said Wednesday when asked for her reaction to the news. “I’m just really disappointed. For 10 years the residents, the shop owners – everybody’s been waiting – TTC riders. Come on, open it up.”

She said she wants the system to be tested and repaired as needed, but said it should be done “fast.”

“It’s just unbearable. Ten years later, you still can’t tell us when you can open it up? So please, Toronto riders deserve fast, reliable public transit and Eglinton LRT needs to be open. So it’s really disappointing, but please fix it fast and open it up please.”

At a news conference earlier Wednesday, Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster said he still cannot provide a reliable opening date for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT as new problems are being discovered weekly.

“I had every intention to predict an opening date or series or range of possible opening dates for the Eglinton Crosstown with you today,” Verster told reporters at Metrolinx headquarters Wednesday. “But I decided against doing so, based on the fact that CTS is finding and rectifying issues on a week by week basis and that this affects the opening date significantly.”

Olivia Chow

While he wouldn’t share a date range or even commit to the line opening sometime next year, Verster said Metrolinx now has “a really good idea” of when the line will open. He said there is also a “much better schedule” now and the provincial transit agency will be providing updates on the project every two months going forward.

The project was supposed to be substantially complete a year ago, but CTS (Crosslinx Transit Solutions) – the consortium building the line – missed the deadline. It has been without a new target date for completion since.

Construction began on the line in the summer of 2011 and it was originally supposed to open in 2020.

However it has been plagued by delays, including the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in labour and supply chain problems. There has also been litigation between Metrolinx and Crosslinx Transit Solutions over cost overruns.

Crosslinx is a consortium made up of several large construction companies, including ACS-Dragados, Aecon, EllisDon and SNC-Lavalin.

Verster said last year that Metrolinx was doing everything it could to hold the consortium accountable.

He said in August that he would provide a tentative opening date for the line by the end of the summer.

The total cost of the 19-km line now stands at around $12.56 billion.

Verster said the new problems that are being discovered weekly affect the opening date and that any target he were to give today would only be an estimate as opposed to a reliable date.

“We will announce an opening date once the high-risk testing phase is completed,” he promised.

Metrolinx Vice-President Phil Taberner offered a technical briefing and said construction of the line “is pretty much complete” aside from a small section of work at Yonge and Eglinton.

“We’re in an extensive phase of testing and commissioning and through the testing and commissioning, faults and issues will arise,” Taberner said. “The time taken to rectify can be unpredictable which is why we are not prepared to predict the dates at this stage.”

However he said that lane closures related to construction of the line are nearly completely gone aside from a 400-metre stretch near Yonge Street.

Grilled by reporters Wednesday on the fact that he won’t even commit to a date range for completion now, Verster said he has “full accountability” as the head of the agency and that he “serves at the pleasure of the minister.”

He said the Crosstown is “one of the most complex” transit projects in North America at the moment and that it has been delayed by COVID and a range of other factors.

Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria, who was recently named to the file after Caroline Mulroney was moved out in a recent cabinet shuffle, did not attend the update. He had little to say about the indefinite delays to the line when asked about it by reporters at Queen’s Park Wednesday.

“Look, this is a very complicated project as I’ve come to appreciate in the few weeks that I’ve had on this file,” he said. “I appreciate the frustration that many commuters feel.”

However in a statement the opposition NDP called the Crosstown a “disaster” and said Verster – one of Ontario’s highest paid public servants with a salary of close to $900,000 – should be fired.

“Consumed by scandal, Ford’s Conservatives have lost control of the province’s transit agency and the vital Eglinton Crosstown,” NDP Transit Critic Joel Harden said. “It’s clear they can’t build transit projects in this province, and people are left waiting for transit that feels like it will never arrive. What a colossal—and costly—disaster.”

The NDP also took aim at Sarkaria for skipping the update.

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Netflix’s subscriber growth slows as gains from password-sharing crackdown subside

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Netflix on Thursday reported that its subscriber growth slowed dramatically during the summer, a sign the huge gains from the video-streaming service’s crackdown on freeloading viewers is tapering off.

The 5.1 million subscribers that Netflix added during the July-September period represented a 42% decline from the total gained during the same time last year. Even so, the company’s revenue and profit rose at a faster pace than analysts had projected, according to FactSet Research.

Netflix ended September with 282.7 million worldwide subscribers — far more than any other streaming service.

The Los Gatos, California, company earned $2.36 billion, or $5.40 per share, a 41% increase from the same time last year. Revenue climbed 15% from a year ago to $9.82 billion. Netflix management predicted the company’s revenue will rise at the same 15% year-over-year pace during the October-December period, slightly than better than analysts have been expecting.

The strong financial performance in the past quarter coupled with the upbeat forecast eclipsed any worries about slowing subscriber growth. Netflix’s stock price surged nearly 4% in extended trading after the numbers came out, building upon a more than 40% increase in the company’s shares so far this year.

The past quarter’s subscriber gains were the lowest posted in any three-month period since the beginning of last year. That drop-off indicates Netflix is shifting to a new phase after reaping the benefits from a ban on the once-rampant practice of sharing account passwords that enabled an estimated 100 million people watch its popular service without paying for it.

The crackdown, triggered by a rare loss of subscribers coming out of the pandemic in 2022, helped Netflix add 57 million subscribers from June 2022 through this June — an average of more than 7 million per quarter, while many of its industry rivals have been struggling as households curbed their discretionary spending.

Netflix’s gains also were propelled by a low-priced version of its service that included commercials for the first time in its history. The company still is only getting a small fraction of its revenue from the 2-year-old advertising push, but Netflix is intensifying its focus on that segment of its business to help boost its profits.

In a letter to shareholder, Netflix reiterated previous cautionary notes about its expansion into advertising, though the low-priced option including commercials has become its fastest growing segment.

“We have much more work to do improving our offering for advertisers, which will be a priority over the next few years,” Netflix management wrote in the letter.

As part of its evolution, Netflix has been increasingly supplementing its lineup of scripted TV series and movies with live programming, such as a Labor Day spectacle featuring renowned glutton Joey Chestnut setting a world record for gorging on hot dogs in a showdown with his longtime nemesis Takeru Kobayashi.

Netflix will be trying to attract more viewer during the current quarter with a Nov. 15 fight pitting former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson against Jake Paul, a YouTube sensation turned boxer, and two National Football League games on Christmas Day.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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