Feds commit to financial share in extension north from Downsview station

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Mayor David Miller praised the signing of a federal/provincial deal that will see $6.2 billion of federal money flow into Ontario infrastructure work.

"I'm very pleased that the Province of Ontario and the federal government have signed the agreement about the Building Canada Fund," said Miller at an event Thursday afternoon, just hours after federal Transportation Minister Laurence Cannon joined Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Ontario Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman in London, Ontario to announce the long-awaited consummation of the deal.

The arrangement was touted as both a much-needed boost to Ontario's transportation infrastructure and a boost to the province's economy. But for Toronto, the focus was on the Spadina subway extension to York University.

The $2.8-billion, 8.7-kilometer extension from Downsview station and into York Region has been on the books for years, and has committed funding from both the Ontario government and the Toronto Transit Commission and York Region.

But the final third, from the federal government, has been long withheld.

Thursday's announcement likely means that the Spadina subway extension funding will likely flow - and the TTC will be able to do more than the preliminary planning work that has been all it can afford to do without the federal help.

Miller said he understood frustrations about the delays in the project.

"The Spadina extension is an important part of our transportation network. For the first time it will run a TTC subway into York Region. Would we have liked the shovels in the ground sooner? Of course. But this paves the way to ensure that they will."

The Building Canada Fund will be providing $3.09 billion in new infrastructure money, with the rest of it coming from continued flow of the federal gas tax to transportation projects.

Miller said he's also optimistic that a portion of the money will go toward MoveOntario 2020, the vehicle by which Toronto's light rail plan is to be funded.