Public transit, same story in Alberta
This item waved me down when I was reading X just now: the Alberta government has just told Calgary that public transit is a municipal responsibility. Sound familiar? These right‑leaning governments are always copying each other’s playbooks, even if Quebec would never admit to it.
Josh 11:49 on 2024-05-01 Permalink
Mike Harris cut all Ontario gov support for public transit in that province when I was a teenager. I remember prior to the cuts, every bus in Ottawa had two stickers at the front acknowledging the contributions of the provincial and municipal levels of government. When the cuts occurred, OCTranspo removed all of the Ontario stickers from the buses.
DeWolf 15:00 on 2024-05-01 Permalink
I never thought I’d be singing the praises of Doug Ford but, compared to any other province, Ontario is investing a lot in public transit. The Ontario Line and GO RER projects will be transformative, and there are light rail projects in Mississauga and suburban Toronto that will do a lot of good too.
Of course, the devil is in the details and Ontario is also the province that produced the disastrous O-Train and the Eglinton line in Toronto, which has been under construction for 14 years with still no fixed opening date… But at least the money is flowing. Ontario is spending $70 billion on transit projects over the next decade.
Ramsay 16:00 on 2024-05-01 Permalink
On a related transit note, this article lists several ways the STM has been kneecapped by politics over the years Commençons par libérer la STM de l’ingérence politique: https://lp.ca/vHwxRJ?sharing=true
Kate 16:20 on 2024-05-01 Permalink
Good piece, Ramsay – thank you.
Ian 19:55 on 2024-05-02 Permalink
@DeWolf it’s a different situation in that the intercity train basically delivers commuters to Toronto – pretty much all of southern Ontario is urbanized now, with people commuting to work in Toronto from as far away as Kitchener- and suburbs all the way up to Barrie. Remember Ford is in the pocket of developers so improving suburban sprawl opportunities is right in his wheelhouse. The population of southern Ontario is about 14 million … that’s more than a third of the population of all of Canada right there.