Wed, January 28, 2009
London can position itself as an international transportation hub, but will have to act fast, the city’s chief administrator warns.
With the region’s manufacturing engine faltering, and the hunt on for replacements, Jeff Fielding today gave the city’s board of control a sweeping vision of London’s economic future.
A larger transportation role figures in that vision, but with other cities also chasing the $1 billion the federal government has set aside over five years for hard-hit southern Ontario, time is of the essence, he said.
“We have to have a strategy in place that looks to the next economy,” he said.
“There’s $1 billion on offer. We have to be ingenious to get a handle on this.”
Making London International Airport a central facility — handling regional, national and foreign freight through a major distribution centre — is part of the vision.
So is adding a truck-train facility, a so-called intermodal terminal, where three main rail lines meet near Komoka.
Close to the U.S. market, on the nation’s biggest highway system and cheaper to fly goods in and out of than most large Canadian cities, London has key advantages.
Another advantage will be added soon with the airport rolled into an open-skies agreement between Canada and the 27-member European Union, allowing London to go after more of billions of dollars a year in air passenger and freight traffic.
The airport was also recently approved for Ottawa's cargo trans-shipment program, allowing cargo to be moved duty-free through the airport from one country to another.
Fielding said London’s next economy could and should include partnerships with the airport, the city’s post-secondary schools and the South West Economic Alliance.
He said the plan becomes an even stronger possibility with the federal budget announcement of the $1 billion over five years for southern Ontario, money to flow from a new economic development fund.
Fielding said as much as 80 per cent of what’s produced here goes to the Toronto area, where it’s “up-manufactured” and then whizzes past London to U.S. and other markets.
London can decide it wants a bigger piece of that action.
Specific details can come later but not too much later, he said: Other centres are chasing the same pot of cash.
Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best said local government traditionally has had great plans but not followed through.
“There is an urgency and I don’t think we can delay. I think we need to move as quickly as we can.”
Controller Gord Hume lauded it as a solid plan.
“We don’t need huge amounts of navel-gazing and blue-sky-ing and that sort of thing. Let’s get on with action.”
The federal budget included millions to improve rail service among Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto – because they lobbied for it, noted Dianne Cunningham, director of the Lawrence National Centre for Policy and Management at the Richard Ivey School of Business.
“Now, we’re never going to get it unless we scream for it,” she told the board, presenting a response by her and her students to Fielding’s strategy.
She said the plan for distribution centres and dedicated freight lines needs to reach everyone’s ears.
“The sense of urgency, in the students’ view, has not reached the government of Canada, the government of Ontario.”
"Our way of working has to change in the next three to five years" as government and institutions, not the private sector, lead spending, Fielding said.
That means it’s essential to form partnerships with the University of Western Ontario and Fanshawe College to regenerate the city and region.
“It’s time we got together and realized we have to consolidate our viewpoints.”
He said staff will report back with a detailed action plan, time frames, costs and funding sources.
Controllers expressed enthusiasm for the strategy but also want to make sure politicians and administrators think beyond re-working the faltering auto-based economy.
“What programs are going to be an investment into the jobs of the future?” Deputy Mayor Tom Gosnell asked.
He said short-term financial investment is important, but not at the expense of long-term thinking.
“London wants to position itself for the future. That’s the point of this program. It’s not for someone to say, ‘Well, I always wanted to fix that sewer on Emery (Street).”
OTHER PLAN ELEMENTS
Besides major airport and rail/trucking upgrades, the vision shared with city controllers yesterday includes:
Making better use of land available along the Highway 401/402 corridor and along Veteran’s Memorial Parkway.
Adding high-speed passenger rail through the region and a dedicated rail for freight.
Expanding Hwy. 7 through Perth County and connecting it with Hwy. 402.
Local technology and innovation partnerships with UWO and Fanshawe College.
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