Ontario Could Get Half Of Ottawaai??i??s $3.4B Transit Infrastructure Money This Year

Ontario could get half of Ottawaai??i??s $3.4B transit infrastructure money this year
Ontario could expect to receive $1.5 billion for transit infrastructure from the federal budget, Trudeau announced Friday.
Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday during an announcement at a bus depot in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., that money for transit will roll out this year.
By: Terry Pedwell The Canadian Press, Published on Fri Apr 08 2016SAULT STE MARIE, ONT.ai??i??The $3.4 billion included in last monthai??i??s federal budget for transit infrastructure will begin rolling out to municipalities this year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Friday as he expanded on his governmentai??i??s plan to invest the money.
The prime minister didnai??i??t specify how much individual communities would receive, but he did say Ontario in particular could expect to receive about half the money ai??i?? $1.5 billion.
The federal government will also pay a larger share of the cost of projects, and provinces and municipalities can spend the money as they see fit, Trudeau told a news conference at a transit headquarters building in Sault Ste. Marie.
ai???To get projects moving quickly, the federal government will fund up to 50 per cent of the eligible costs of projects,ai??? Trudeau said.
ai???Weai??i??re giving provinces and municipalities the freedom to invest these funds in the way that makes the most sense for their communities.
ai???Theyai??i??re the local experts. They know what needs to be done better than anyone else.ai???
Like many communities with largely resource-based economies, Sault Ste. Marie has been struggling with low commodity prices around the globe.
The cityai??i??s bus services were cut recently as city council grappled with a budget shortfall. And the biggest employer in town ai??i?? Essar Steel Algoma ai??i?? has been under bankruptcy protection since last fall.
Ontario could get half of this early funding because for about the last decade or so, if and when funding comes for certain transit projects, Ontario municipalities were told, “make sure you are ready to go!” For example, this round of federal transit infrastructure cash is mainly based on maintenance based transit capital works projects. Most Ontario municipalities have a laundry list of projects ready to go, just sitting waiting for funding. After a decade of Harper screaming at municipalities nation wide to be ready for the cash, the few times they actually released funding for them and then the provincial Liberals screaming they same thing to Ontario municipalities, “have your projects ready to go”. Guess what they were ready! Politics had very little to do with it. In every funding category Ontario municipalities have been preparing lists of funding ready projects. Don’t blame Ontario municipalities because they actually prepared in advance and listened to what senior levels of government have been telling them to do for years.
This is why I bored you guys with, “stop fighting each other over transit technology, use the internet and all the other local Vancouver transit bloggers to help build a consensus”, so you can and be ready to go when the money comes! But you guys still can’t agree on how you are going to fund things locally. Instead of voting yes to a nasty tax and it was a nasty tax, but it would mean things could be funded. Which is always more important than, arguing if your transit agency is efficient enough to deserve your taxes. What is frustrating for me as a person living in a Ontario municipality, I’m considerably more heavily taxed at the municipal level than you guys are in BC. So guess what, the municipalities here have their stuff together and got the money first.
It took years here in Ottawa to finally get a political consensus so LRT could be a reality. In some circles were still fighting this battle but for the most part, that battle has been won! Toronto does like to argue a lot about this stuff however slowly but surely a consensus of sorts has risen up out of shear frustration but it is there, none the less. Hamilton is still refighting its LRT battle (including real fist fights) but they have a willing province and so far, the B-Line LRT project continues. Brampton can’t seem to agree on where the final 3km of the Hurontario LRT line should go yet, the remaining 17km is going to tender this year. Kitchener-Waterloo is building 19 km phase 1 of their LRT project which faced court challenges, multiple civic elections and tax revolts. The one area (Cambridge)ironically that was most against LRT leading up to the construction of phase 1 is now the most supportive of the 17 km phase 2 extension. All of this took time, stop the small little battles and worry about the big ones, getting the money!
Zwei replies: You don’t have SkyTrain nor the SkyTrain lobby to contend with.
Try the violent and professionally threatening Transitway Lobby here in Ottawa. It took a cut everything Conservative provincial government to literally put them in their place and yet even today, they still have the power to push for more BRT. Remember as I speak to you from Ottawa, we are not only building phase 1 of the LRT system and trying desperately to budget and fund 30+km of the phase 2 LRT program, so that we can start construction around 2018-2019. We are also currently in final planning/engineering and about to start construction of the remaining section on phase 1 of the Barrhaven-Riverside Transitway, south of Greenbelt. On top of that, we are currently building phase 1 of the Holy Acres to Kanata Transitway to the west of the Greenbelt! So if you don’t think rail transit has some powerful enemies here you would be dead wrong! We kid ourselves here but it is true that, we are the only city that has an LRT building program that is planning to build more KM of BRT Transitway than actual km’s of LRT.