Toronto needs $26 billion over 10 years to stop infrastructure decline

She told the Star in an interview that “we’re going to really fix what we have first.” 

“Because the longer we wait to fix our old infrastructure, the more expensive it’s going to be, the worse it’s going to look. Which means the service level will go down,” she said.   

According to Chow, while the $1.8-billion shortfall on Toronto’s operating budget took up most of council’s energy this year, the focus for 2025 should be on the capital budget, which funds infrastructure repair. 

Savings from uploading the Gardiner and DVP to the province will help but Toronto is still looking for federal infrastructure-funding commitments, and without new sources of revenue the city is “falling behind more and more,” she said.

City staff drafted the 255-page report to meet the provincial requirement that all municipalities complete detailed asset-management plans. The document covers about $73 billion in Toronto assets that aren’t considered essential — plans for “core” infrastructure like roads, bridges, and water systems had to be filed by 2022 — but still raises red flags about facilities that Torontonians rely on every day for things like transportation, recreation, and social services.

Many of the city’s assets were built in the postwar building boom, and about 40 per cent of those covered in the report are rated as in poor or very poor condition, meaning they “are past their useful lives and require rehabilitation or replacement.” 

Just to maintain the current state of all the listed infrastructure would require $40 billion in spending over 10 years. While planned investments are projected to halt or reverse deterioration in some departments like the police, children’s services, shelters and the Toronto Zoo, others will decline unless the $26-billion shortfall is addressed. 

The TTC alone will require $2.4 billion more a year over the next decade to maintain its state of good repair. At current funding projections “service levels are anticipated to continue to decline,” the report states. 

More than 70 per cent of library infrastructure is also in poor or very poor shape. The city is planning to spend an average of $23.7 million annually on upkeep for the department, but would need to increase that by $2.6 million just to prevent further deterioration of library assets.

Toronto Community Housing, which provides affordable rental units to nearly 60,000 residents, is in better shape, but about 42 per cent of its assets are rated as poor or worse. The city would need to more than double its annual spending on repair work, to $334 million, to prevent its buildings from crumbling further. 

Meanwhile, about two-thirds of the city’s corporate real estate portfolio is in need of refurbishment or replacement, and the division needs $78 million more a year just to stop the rot, while a third of parks and recreation assets — which include rec centres, arenas, ferries, and sports fields — are in bad condition. That department needs an additional $27 million annually.

Matti Siemiatycki, director of the Infrastructure Institute at the University of Toronto, said the report is evidence of the decline many Torontonians have already observed in public facilities, from rundown park washrooms to buckets placed under leaky community-centre roofs.

Other cities face the same problem, he said, because under Canada’s constitutional framework municipalities are responsible for maintaining costly infrastructure but lack the taxation power wielded by the provincial and federal governments. When city budgets get tight, maintenance is often the first item cut or deferred.  

While the problem isn’t new, Siemiatycki said the report is “hugely important.”

“Just to see how much of that infrastructure is deteriorated and see how much investment is needed really is profound and requires immediate attention,” he said.

With files from Alyshah Hasham