Doug Ford promised to build a new local train station. Metrolinx says it’s a bad idea

A Ford government plan to build a new GO station beside a marquee development in Mississauga, first announced last year, disregarded advice from the provinceâ€s own transit planning agency, Global News has learned.

Last spring, the government revealed it was granting a Minister’s Zoning Order to supersize a development on Mississauga’s waterfront, bypassing local council plans and allowing the new community to jump closer to reality.

As part of the announcement, the government said the developer behind Lakeview Village would help to deliver a range of new local benefits, including a new train station along the local GO line. The promise has been repeated since by both the premier and local Progressive Conservative MPP.

Internally, however, work done by the provincial transit agency, Metrolinx, recommended against building the station. Documents obtained by Global News using freedom of information laws said a new station would bring too many complications for too few benefits.

“Based on the analysis completed with the information available at this time, a new Lakeview GO Station is not recommended to proceed as new residents and jobs will be similarly well served by local transit first and last-mile connections to existing GO stations and significant impacts on existing customers will be avoided,†the internal report said.

“Instead, a focus on local transit connections to existing GO Stations should be prioritized.â€

Metrolinx found that building a new station would require “significant investments†to change rail tracks in the area and the construction of new noise barriers. The report also found current GO train customers would be dissatisfied, particularly if the new station resulted in the closure of Long Branch GO, immediately to the east.

In response to questions, the government refused to say whether it would keep the promise it had made or heed the advice of its expert planning agency instead.

“Weâ€re always looking at ways to bring transit to growing communities, including Mississauga,” a spokesperson for the minister of transportation said in a statement which did not address the questions sent about cost and timeline.

“Metrolinx did their initial study which has provided important information, and we are exploring all options to better connect residents in the area.”

The province’s first mention of a new GO station near Lakeview Village, between Long Branch and Port Credit on the Lakeshore West line, came with the announcement of a controversial zoning order.

In May 2023, the government announced it was giving Lakeview Community Partners a zoning order to accelerate the construction and planning of an 18,000-unit development on the site of an old power generating station.

The new order — which was decried by the local council, then led by Bonnie Crombie — included a reference to infrastructure the developer would contribute to. Among the “impressive public benefits” the province promised was “new transit services and infrastructure, including a prospective new GO Train station on the Lakeshore West Line.”

The next week, Ontario Premier Doug Ford repeated the promise at an unrelated news event.

“It’s going to be close to transit alongside substantial community benefits and upgraded infrastructure with the cost of these benefits to be borne by the homebuilders, not the taxpayers,” Ford said when asked about the zoning order by reporters.

“New transit services and infrastructure, including new GO train station on Lakeshore West Line.”

When Ford and his team announced the plan for a new GO station, however, internal documents suggested little work to assess it had taken place. The idea was not included in public expansion plans for provincial transit agency Metrolinx, which had not studied the concept.

The province did not respond to a question asking if the proposed station was a condition of the zoning order, while Lakeview Community Partners also did not respond.

Sources with knowledge of the MZO said they did not believe a new station was part of the agreement.

A few months after the province began to publicly advertise it was considering a new station on the Lakeshore West line beside the new Lakeview Village development, Metrolinx completed internal work assessing the idea.

The transit agency’s chief of staff told colleagues the report wasn’t an official business case but said the “planning team has done a fair bit of due diligence” looking at the issue, according to an email seen by Global News.

The result of that work was clearly spelled out in a July 20, 2023, report: “a new Lakeview GO station is not recommended.”

The internal report laid out three options, suggesting adding a station would not be needed because the 32,000 new residents and 9,000 jobs expected to come from the development “would similarly well served by local transit first and last-mile connections to existing GO stations.”

The report considered the status quo, adding a new Lakeview GO station to the existing route or replacing the Long Branch GO station in the westernmost tip of Toronto, with a new Lakeview station.

Changes to the existing Long Branch station — which acts as a TTC terminus and is used by 10,000-plus passengers every day — were not recommended, nor was adding a new Lakeview station and leaving Long Branch in place.

“Although the high development activity in Lakeview area will require transit infrastructure to meet the demand, this assessment concludes that Long Branch GO and its current and planned local and regional transit connections are sufficient to serve transit users from future developments,” the report said.

A spokesperson for Metrolinx sent Global News a general statement about transit planning.

“New transit stations and other significant transit infrastructure projects are studied to ensure operational feasibility and overall benefits to the network,” they said.

Despite the provincial agency tasked with transit planning explicitly recommending against the Lakeview GO station in July last year, the Ford government has repeated the promise.

At a Mississauga news event on the site of the planned Lakeview development in August, local Progressive Conservative MPP Rudy Cuzzetto reiterated the promise that Metrolinx had warned against.

“Thousands of new affordable and attainable homes within steps of transit, including a new GO transit station on the Lakeshore West Line to offer more transit options,” he said on Aug. 7, 2024, reading from pre-written remarks.

How much work has gone into the station — beyond a brief assessment by Metrolinx — remains unclear.

The premier’s office did not respond to a question from Global News asking if Ford remained committed to the promise he and his caucus had made and repeated.