City of Toronto suing WSP over alleged design deficiencies on highway work

The City of Toronto is seeking tens of millions of dollars over claimed deficiencies in design consulting provided by WSP for rehabilitation work on the Gardiner Expressway.

According to a lawsuit filed at Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice, the city is seeking at least $36 million from the Montreal-based design and engineering consulting firm.

The statement of claim says the design errors forced the city to incur extra costs to resolve the errors and reduce delay. The City of Toronto says it made $33.2 million in increased payments to a contractor due to design issues – including $20 million to accelerate completion of the project and $10 million in extra costs due to winter work.

The city also says it paid an extra $3 million so city staff could oversee the work.

Alleged design errors include failing to account for stormwater management.

“The city has suffered significant additional costs caused by WSP's design errors. Despite requests from the city, WSP has failed to or refused to compensate the city," said the statement of claim, which was filed in February.

Tamer El-Diraby, a civil engineering professor at the University of Toronto, told the CBC that the lawsuit will take months or years to resolve. He said that such cases rarely proceed to litigation, either because the parties use alternative dispute resolution avenues or the damages involved are not as significant.