ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit

[jeffster]

This is crazy news. I am sad for the people of Hamilton. Looks like another decade of debate for them with no investment in rapid transit. Unfortunately I do think this will drop phase 2 down the line. Luckily we as a region more or less have seen the benefits of the lrt system and are committed to building it to cambridge so maybe we will be more prepared than Hamilton to receive funding. 

I am interested to see how this effects development in Hamilton. Seems like we will se a slow down in investments there. I am also interested to see how this effect population growth. I know when I moved from Toronto I was deciding between kw or Hamilton but ultimately chose kw because of the lrt.

Sometimes I complain about all the mistakes made in building the LRT. And sometimes I cannot understand how it managed to get built at all.

Our society is basically built nothing ever right now.  Never mind what China can do, if we actually built the things we planned to build, we'd at least be building something.

Part of the issue with Hamilton is that they want this LRT for completely free. Ford is talking about the $5B cost, when it's actually $3B (still 3x more than original estimate). So are we to assume that Ontario was also going to pay for the operational cost as well? I believe here in KW we're paying 100% of the operational costs (which then you have to minus any funds already received from user payments and federal and provincial transfers).

Not sure what you mean by "Our society is basically built nothing ever right now.  Never mind what China can do.."

For one, we have built things, such as our own LRT. As for China, they have 40x the population and super cheap labour and lax safety rules and environmental rules, compared to Canada. If they couldn't build things, something would be seriously wrong with them.

As for this region, I suppose we should be proud of ourselves. We have an LRT, long before places like Hamilton, London, Mississauga, Brampton, Quebec, and Winnipeg. We had an expressway, before many other cities (including Hamilton, Winnipeg and London doesn't even have one). The region has taken it on the chin more times than most places, yet we plck ourselves back up and become better. We're a stubborn region, refusing to ever give up.

Moments like this, I think I'm glad we live in a region that dives right in and gets things done. We would be totally different if we were to back down and give up like so many other cities.

I am not sure how this will affect stage 2 of the LRT. The region was never asking for 100% costs to build the LRT, let alone operate it. So the province committing to $500M isn't unreasonable -- if it's even that high for the provincial portion. Guess we'll see.