[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

You'd be surprised

Of course it won't get built on someone's word. But here's the situation: the STO is currently seriously considering two options, either "BRT" (more in the Kingston sense than the Ottawa sense) or LRT (more in the Waterloo sense than Ottawa) on Aylmer Road. One option basically costs the price of paint (but has a capacity which will hadly last 10 years), the other costs much more than that, but is a long-term solution, capacity-wise. Normally, the Gatineau thing to do would be to go with the first option, but what Fergus's event has demonstrated, things may have changed.

Historically, Gatineau has not applied for federal infrastructure funding. That was the case for the new bus garage and Rapibus. This was for a variety of reasons, but one relevant one was that the Outaouais has almost always been a politically weak region (municipally, provincially and federally). As a comparison, Ottawa has received a little less than $4000/person in prov/fed transit funding whereas Gatineau has barely seen $1000/person. At the same levels, Gatineau should dispose of over $1B of upper-tier funding alone.

But the post-2011 crop of municipal and federal (and to a certain extent, provincial) representatives have been much, much more vocal and proactive about Gatineau's needs and it would seem that both upper tiers have also been much more receptive.

So what this all means is that, for the first time in a long time, we don't really know how this project will turn out. All of a sudden, it looks like Gatineau might indeed have four times more money to play with in 2016 than it did in 2006. It doesn't mean that Council will take it - it's not really in the Gatineau mentality (yet) - but now they at least have the possibility to do so.

That's why this is such a big deal.

Interesting thoughts!