Biggest Provincial Investment in Ottawa Transit — Ever
Ontario Liberals Accelerate Next Stage of LRT to Give Families More Travel Options
Thursday, May 17, 2018
OTTAWA — Ontario Liberals are listening to the people of Ottawa and building the transit options families in growing communities need.
Premier Kathleen Wynne was at Walkley Yard, the OC Transpo train maintenance facility, with her team of Ottawa candidates to talk about the Ontario Liberal record of building Ottawa up and delivering positive change.
Ontario Liberals have invested more than $1 billion towards the next stage of Ottawa’s LRT. It is the largest investment any government has ever made in Ottawa transit and means that the next stage of construction to extend the LRT east, west and south can begin within months of the Confederation Line opening this fall.
We are also investing to add another ten kilometres of track and four more stations to the next stage of the Ottawa LRT project, giving more Ottawa families more choice in their commute, including:
- A two-stop spur from the Trillium Line to Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport
- A one-stop extension of the Confederation Line further east from Place-d’Orléans Station to Trim Road in Orléans
- A 3.4 kilometre extension of the Trillium line to a new terminus station near Limebank Road, in Ottawa's fast growing Riverside South community
In total, the next stage of the Ottawa LRT project will now add more than 40 kilometres of new light rail and 24 new stations.
The Doug Ford Conservatives agenda is to cut billons from the services people depend on — such as health care, education and transit — while rewarding the rich with unnecessary corporate tax cuts. As a Toronto city councillor, Ford cancelled LRT projects that were funded and ready to go. Ford’s new scheme to cut the gas tax further undermines local transit projects like the Ottawa LRT, as the provincial gas tax is used to build and improve local transit. The NDP platform makes no commitment to funding the next stage of Ottawa’s LRT, failing to even mention the project. Only the Ontario Liberals are listening to the people of Ottawa and committed to making record-breaking investments in Ottawa’s transit systems.
The Liberal plan expands publicly funded prescription drugs to one-in-two people in Ontario, makes the largest mental health care investment in Canadian history, builds a record amount of transit, boosts hospital funding, helps more people go to college or university with publicly funded tuition and lets more parents go back to work by funding preschool child care from 2 ½ to kindergarten. Ontario’s economy is growing stronger, but that growth and the care and services it funds are at risk this election.
Quote
“The people of Ontario elected me to build our province up and that’s exactly what we have been doing, including in Ottawa. We have strong voices for Ottawa on our Liberal team and we are listening to the community’s challenges, and building solutions. The biggest-ever provincial investment in Ottawa transit means the days of long waits between projects are over. Our plan means Stage Two construction on the LRT can begin just months after Stage One opens, and it adds even more stations and kilometres of track to deliver the fast, convenient transit options that people throughout the region are asking for.”
—Premier Kathleen Wynne
Quick Facts
- Since 2003, Ontario Liberals have invested more than $2.3 billion in public transit in the City of Ottawa, including more than $452 million in Gas Tax Funding and $600 million towards Stage One of the Confederation Line LRT
- Under the Ontario Liberal plan, the share of the provincial gas tax flowing to municipalities for transit will double by 2021-22, without adding a cent to the price people pay at the pump
- Stage Two of the Ottawa LRT project is expected to enter service in 2023
- On Wednesday, May 2, the City of Ottawa Transit Committee approved a plan for another expansion of the LRT system. Valued at $1.85 billion, the extension would deliver more transit options for Kanata by adding eleven kilometres and eight stations
For more information:
communications@ontarioliberal.ca