$372 million transit cash for Hamilton
- Jayson Koblun
- 11 Apr 2018
Almost $400 million to spend on transit in any Canadian city is guaranteed to have a huge impact.
In an infrastructure spending agreement between the federal government and province, the City of Hamilton has been promised $372 million over the next 10 years to spend on redeveloping and improving its transit.
The money could potentially pay for the city’s plan of improving the HSR (Hamilton Street Railway), which nearly everyone in this city would unanimously agree needs upgrading.
Improvement ideas include adding new bus routes across the mountain and to Waterdown as well as focus along the “BLAST network”. For those unfamiliar, the BLAST network is a plan for a frequent rapid transit system in the city that consists of five routes and two light rail lines (LRT).
“This is going to go a long way towards helping us achieve our 10-year strategy and better integrate our transit service with LRT,” said Mayor Fred Eisenberger in March.
He said that council has to determine how it plans to come up with municipal matching dollars of about $137 million. It is unsure how quickly the federal and provincial money will become available over the city’s 10-year plan.
The federal government will contribute $204 of the total $372 million, while the province will contribute the remaining $168 million. The original plan was to add up to 100 new buses and to construct a lower city bus barn, but the city was short by more than $300 million.
Right now there’s nowhere for new buses to be stored. The current garage on Upper James Street is already full.
City finance head Mike Zegarac said he’s awaiting details for how the cash will be rolled out and over what timelines, in an article by the Hamilton Spectator. He said the city will likely have to review its long-term spending plans for transit once a more detailed timeline for the new funding is known.
Hamilton has already begun spending its first round of transit cash. They’ve done work on the existing bus barn and made purchases for new buses, transit shelters and tech improvements.
Are you excited to see new life be breathed into Hamilton’s transit system? Let us know what you think below!
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