How the Hamilton effect could hamper Phase 2 of Ottawa's LRT
Joanne Chianello, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: January 30, 2015, Last Updated: January 30, 2015 8:09 PM EST
It has been a week that brought us closer to the excitement of light rail, but also to the looming obstacles for our future ambitious plans.
Here in Ottawa, of course, we’re excited to get our first glimpse of an Alstrom train that will carry us on our LRT system some years hence. (The mock-up rail car is set up at Aberdeen Pavilion for everyone to climb aboard and play engineer for the month of February.)
As most of the work on the Confederation Line so far has been underground and out of sight, being able to sit in a rail car makes the project more real for many of us, even if it won’t be a reality for another three years.
And the Alstrom train is a concrete reminder of the aggressive expansion plan we have beyond 2018. Next week, there are three public meetings on the route for the eastern LRT plan. In a little more than a month, city and National Capital Commission officials will tell us whether they’re any closer to a compromise on the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway portion of the western LRT route. And possibly by the end of the year, the city will apply to the provincial and federal levels of government to each fund one-third of the $980-million bill to extend rail to the east, west, south and to Algonquin College by 2023.
Despite some public bombast late last year over the western LRT route — it’ll be settled somehow — the biggest question mark hanging over Phase 2 is whether the federal government will ante up almost $1 billion. And after this week, the signs aren’t looking good that it will.
Why not? Because of Hamilton.
Earlier this week, the mayor of Hamilton met privately with Premier Kathleen Wynne where she apparently promised that the province would pay the entire $811-million tab for Hamilton’s planned LRT. (The province isn’t saying so explicitly, but the mayor is on the record saying that’s exactly what she told him, and his city manager, who was in on the meeting, agrees.)
Great deal, huh? It seems not to be good enough for some Hamilton councillors, who are still opposing light rail. That’s the problem for the fine people of The Hammer; why the province totally funds some municipalities’ rapid-transit systems and funds only part of the costs for others is our problem.
How does the province decide what project it’s going to fully fund?
Here’s what Ontario’s Minister of Transportation, Steven Del Duca, who was in town for the Alstrom train unveiling this week, answered: “When I think of all the transit projects we’ve invested in … we evaluate the feasibility on how best to move forward on a case-by-case basis and what makes sense.”
Yes, but how do you decide “what makes sense,” Minister?
“Again, we evaluate on a case-by-case basis. In this case here in Ottawa, you’re under construction and Hamilton is not under construction yet. There still is some additional work that needs to be done.”
It’s hard to know how Del Duca’s comments are relevant to how the province decided when to fully fund a city’s transit project, but here’s a guess: to alleviate congestion in the Greater Toronto Area, Hamilton needs to get on board with a rapid transit plan, and for that city’s LRT to feed into the GO commuter rail system between Hamilton and Toronto. It makes sense, except for the major problem that Hamilton doesn’t want to pay for an LRT. So the province is picking up the tab.
And after all, the province has promised tons of transit cash, right? Wynne’s government has announced that over the next decade, it will spend $29 billion on transportation projects, with $15 billion earmarked for the GTA and Hamilton, and “up to $14 billion” in the rest of Ontario.
The province has already vowed to fund a third of Ottawa’s next phase of light rail. The feds have been rather less enthusiastic.
MP Royal Galipeau, who represented the federal government at this week’s train-unveiling event, said that the Conservative government recognizes that municipalities can’t fund major infrastructure programs on their own. For Confederation Line, the province and the feds each contributed $600 million.
However, asked about the funding for light-rail expansion, Galipeau pointed out that “municipalities are creatures of the province.”
What does that mean? Well, he went on, if Ontario is “spending $29 billion in one province, and we’re spending $13 billion across the country, obviously it’s not even.”
Still less encouraging was Galipeau’s assurance that Ottawa’s application for funding will be reviewed “in the same spirit” as that for Phase 1, except that “the cash will be adjudicated in the economic circumstances of the time.”
Uh-oh.
He didn’t say it in so many words, but it’s easy to interpret the Ottawa-Orléans MP’s statements as hinting that the federal government will likely find some funds, but not $1 billion, for Phase 2 — and the province can pick up the rest. Or not.
If that unfortunate scenario unfolds, the province will have to ante up any shortfall. How could it not when there are other instances where the provincial government has paid for municipal transit projects in full?
At Ottawa’s VIP-packed train unveiling this week, Del Duca said, “What we see here is an extraordinary coming together of all three levels of government.”
The transportation minister likely didn’t realize how prophetic his comments might turn out to be.
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