Although not the full report that's been promised for February 2012, Gordon Chong, the former Toronto councillor who's been tasked with outlining a funding structure for the Sheppard subway extension, offered a little teaser to the Globe yesterday in saying that a public-private partnership appears "doable." Problem is, there's a rather sizeable catch. Chong claims he'll require an additional $5 to $10 million in funding to proceed with technical studies related to his feasibility analysis.

"City council is going to have to decide whether it is worthwhile proceeding," he said. If taken to council, does Ford still have enough sway to get something like this backed? At what point does the the expression "money pit" come into play?

Perhaps even more interesting troubling is that Chong speculated that the private sector could be leveraged for only a third or less of the funding required to build the line. That still leaves the City a huge chunk of the tab to payoff, and does anyone really think there's going to be funds leftover from the Eglinton LRT?

While the "doability" of a partnership may comes as good news to Ford, he's always believed in its feasibility anyway, so if anything, this most recent bit of news is yet another reason to reevaluate the logic of this "plan."

Photo by Benet Wu in the blogTO Flickr pool