June 15, 2007 - The Ontario government today announced an unprecedented $17.5 billion rapid transit action plan for the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton. Named "Move Ontario 2020", the transit plan features 52 projects that will expand transit to all corners of the GTA. You can click here for a list of the projects (including Toronto's Transit City vision and the extension of the Yonge Subway to Highway 7!).
What's significant about this announcement is not only the scope of this plan, but also the fact that the province will fund two-thirds of all project costs (with hopefully the feds covering the remaining one-third), thus relieving the municipalities of their traditional one-third share.
While critics were quick to say that this is simply an election promise (and the Liberal government doesn't really have a good track record when it comes to that), what's important here is that at least transit, for the first time in a long time, has been brought to the foreground as an important election issue. Sure, the plan is bold and it's not for certain that all the projects will be built, but at least there's now A PLAN to do something - which is something that we haven't seen since the early 90s. Could this transit dream be finally realized?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment