Federal LRT Funding
Today council spent the majority of our morning debating the question of the federal and provincial funding for the proposed Northeast LRT extension to Gorman. I questioned the need to have this conversation in private, but because of the sensitivity of working with other orders of government I reluctantly voted along with the rest of council to go in private for the discussion.
The resulting direction from council was voted on shortly after 5 pm today though the specifics are being kept private for now pending further discussions with other orders of government. I voted for the prevailing decision [clarified at 7:30], though I can’t say what that was, but against the decision to keep it in private. I also made the following brief statement for the record:
“Our citizens need to know that the way infrastructure is funded in this country is utterly dysfunctional. It’s why Canada is falling behind and it jeopardizes our city’s goals with respect to LRT and sustainability in general.”
3 thoughts on “Federal LRT Funding”
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I really question the wisdom of spending a ton of development money on a section of town that doesn’t even exist yet, when there are many parts of this city that could benefit from improved transit that already have a critical mass of riders.
I clarified my post slightly because of what Garth said above. I would add that the decision that council approved was not the same as the recommendation in the report, and I can say that the bylaw to borrow funds for our share of building Gorman was not considered.
any lrt funding pertaining to the far suburbs, should only go to purchasing land for future lrt extension. build it when the people exist that require it. purchase the land now, so we have room to build it.
I don’t like a “build it and they will come” model, as it encourages urban sprawl.
any money that exists to construct new lrt lines (and not just purchase land on the cheap for future lrt, as I suggest above), should go towards the nait lrt line so we have service to all major post secondary campuses in the city. students make up a huge proportion of transit users. after the nait line, all funding should go to the west or south east lines.
after the core of the city is served by the system; after the million residents in the city have lrt access, we should then consider running lrt to the small surrounding suburbs outside of the ring road.