ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ijmorlan]

When the province scaled back their financial commitment from 2/3 to a touch over 1/3, the region really trimmed every small expense they could. That was the era the project came extremely close to getting cancelled.

Just to be clear, the province did not scale back their commitment.  Their commitment was for a fixed amount of money.  The cost of the project grew over time so eventually a larger percentage commitment became a smaller percentage commitment.

Here are some articles that refer to the original commitment:

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/water...9663589301
https://www.therecord.com/news/transit/2...vring.html
https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...ansit.html
https://www.therecord.com/sports/2010/06...ledge.html
https://www.toronto.com/opinion-story/56...oo-region/

Unfortunately I can’t find an article right now from the time of the original commitment, but the history is that around 2007 the Ontario government promised 2/3, then later promised $300M. The federal contribution was 1/3 or about $265M.

Wait: Wikipedia helps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_rapid_...te_note-20 points at https://web.archive.org/web/200810131528...hpt1b.html, which gives us:

Waterloo Region is one of Ontario’s fastest-growing and most innovative communities. The government is committed to working with its municipal, regional and federal partners to complete technical studies and an environmental assessment for a new rapid-transit system there and to supporting up to two-thirds of the project cost.

I wish I could find a news article, because this was reported in the news as a commitment to pay 2/3 of the cost. And given the way government communications work, I guarantee the news was reporting exactly what the government of the day wanted them to report. Unfortunately the media and citizens let the government get away with announcing non-commitments as commitments, not to mention re-announcing existing (non-)commitments as new ones. See the Highway 7 thread for another example, even though I don’t support the Highway 7 project in the planned form. And don’t forget Phase 2 of the Science Teaching Complex at UW: it was announced as if it was a new project, even though it was Phase 2 of the STC project; but since that announcement made under PM Harper, no construction of Phase 2 has taken place. I guess it was really a campaign promise, not a commitment.