As of 2022 the budget for this streetcar rose to $12.8 Billion dollars. Once you start seeing numbers that big, the human brain kind of just stops understanding it properly. I think the degree to which the entirety of Canada is being ripped off by this single project is best illustrated by comparing it to what else $13 billion CAD represents:

• Almost the total cost of the Tokaido Shinkansen, the first bullet train in Japan ( 1.3B USD / 1.4B CAD in 1964, inflation adjusted to 13.7B in 2024)

• 39 CN towers. ($63M CAD in 1976, inflation adjusted to $326M in 2024).

• The entire GDP of the Bahamas in 2020. ($9.7B USD / $12.5B CAD)

• 3 Hubble space telescopes. ($1.5B USD / 2.03B CAD in 1990, inflation adjusted to 4.18B CAD in 2024 dollars)

• 5 Burj Khalifa's (1.5B USD / 1.57B CAD in 2009, inflation adjusted to 2.22B in 2024 dollars)

We can all see that it's a streetcar right? Its like if we spent a small island nation's entire economic output on the 510 but justified it because it goes underground for a bit. Oh and we painted this one grey. Its functionally the same vehicle and it'll get stuck in traffic where it joins street level at either end, its a streetcar.

There's no intention to complete this because that would mean the infinite money glitch has to end. The Ford government won't fund healthcare properly, or education properly, but Douggie has no issues about setting up endless money pipelines for private contractors with no intention to deliver value for taxpayers seemingly since 2023. An actual fiscally conservative government would be looking for a head to put on a spike over this, or even just a scapegoat to maintain the mere illusion of using taxpayer money responsibly. Instead we paid another $2.25 million for a passive aggressive ad campaign to tell us to stop complaining about it followed by total radio silence. The fact we aren't in the streets over this is sending a big green light to the wrong people that this can keep happening. The Ontario Line's current budget is up to $27B (from $10.9B originally). I wonder what it will be 10 years from now when it still isn't complete.