The planned one stop Scarborough subway extension may not have the ridership anticipated when the project was approved.

The first of the 2016 Canadian census information was released yesterday, and reveals the population is shrinking in more than a dozen neighbourhoods in the immediate vicinity of the $3.2 billion subway extension.

Of 31 census tracts surrounding the planned location for the subway extension at Scarborough Town Centre, the population of 18 of them declined over the previous five years.

The one in which the station will be built did see robust growth percentages in the double digits, but in the majority of nearby tracts the population fell.

University of Toronto Transportation Engineering Professor Eric Miller warns if the trend continues it could jeopardize the extension of the Bloor-Danforth subway. But the city’s chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat isn’t worried. She says city staff are working on a complete overhaul of the Scarborough Centre neighbourhood that will transform it into an urban centre fertile for commercial and residential growth.