NDP pledges $12.9 billion to Toronto region transit

The 20-year plan includes $1.6 billion annually for the region in the first four years if the NDP is elected.

Thestar.com
Sept. 12, 2015
By Tess Kalinowski

Toronto region commuters would get the largest share of an NDP government’s 20-year national transit funding plan.

The party is committing $12.9 billion over two decades to the region’s infrastructure, including $7.7 billion that would be targeted exclusively to transit projects, if the party forms the next government following October’s federal election.

The Toronto-area funding is part of the NDP’s 20-year Better Transit Plan that includes $1.3 billion annually for infrastructure across the country over 20 years.

“Canadians are increasingly frustrated as they make their way to school or work each day, faced with congested roads, packed buses, trains or streetcars and subways in need of upgrades ... Every minute spent commuting is time not spent with your family or friends,” NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said on in Edmonton on Friday.

Mulcair is promising to eliminate the Canadian deficit while rolling out the infrastructure program he says will create 54,000 construction, manufacturing and transit operation jobs.

The Toronto area would get $1.6 billion of $7.2 billion in funding that the NDP says would flow in the first four years if it forms the government. That money is separate from other pledges such as housing.

It would be up to municipalities and provinces to determine their project priorities.

In a statement Friday, NDP candidate for Spadina-Fort York Olivia Chow called it “stable and predictable federal funding to support our long-term transit and infrastructure needs” that will get the city moving.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has pledged $60 billion in federal infrastructure funding over 10 years. That would be in addition to the $65 billion already committed. But, he says, it would mean running a deficit until 2019.

About $20 billion of that would be dedicated to transit with $5.1 billion allocated in each of the first two years and $3.6 billion each in the third and fourth year of the plan.

The Conservatives introduced a new program to fund transit in the spring, worth $750 million over two years, followed by an annual $1 billion commitment. In a pre-election announcement party leader Stephen Harper also pledged $2.6 billion, about one-third of the estimated cost, for Mayor John Tory’s signature SmartTrack transit proposal to run more frequent electric trains on GO tracks around the city.

In addition to the estimated $8 billion cost of building SmartTrack, Toronto wants to build two subways - an extension of the Danforth line in Scarborough that is estimated to cost more than $3 billion and a relief line that would intersect with the east end of the Danforth subway and cost at least as much in its first phase.

The TTC is also facing about $2.7 billion in unfunded capital project needs over the coming decade.