Wednesday, May 19, 2010

So, about that federal LRT funding...

The City of Ottawa is still waiting to hear the federal government announce their intentions to match (or hopefully exceed) the provincial $600M funding pledge for the city's $2.1B light-rail transit plan. Queen's Park made its pledge back in December, and the general understanding was that a similar announcement from Federal Infrastructure Minister John Baird would come in a matter of days.

And then days became weeks. And now weeks have become months.

Some councillors, including Transit Committee Vice-Chair Marianne Wilkinson, are getting a little antsy waiting for the announcement. From 580 CFRA:
Vice Chair of Ottawa City Hall's Transit Committee Marianne Wilkinson says the environmental assessment is almost complete and she'd like to hear something concrete soon.

She suggests a delay in funding could slow down the project.
The actual groundbreaking for the project is still a ways off, but that date is getting closer, and we haven't really heard a peep since the federal governments most recent re-committing its $200M in transit plan funding--that money that's been on the table for years, waiting for a transit plan to fund.

Hopefully the announcement will come soon; light-rail transit in Ottawa has already been delayed long enough.

2 comments:

RealGrouchy said...

A cynic might suspect that the feds (and perhaps John Baird himself) are waiting to make the announcement closer to when Larry O'Brien announces his decision to run for re-election. The timing would be similar to the wrench they threw into the old N-S LRT plan during the previous election.

- RG>

Dean said...

At this point whatever it takes to get things moving forward. They are going to play politics no matter what.
It would be a nice change of pace to have them play politics and actually get something done.