rfmcdonald | [URBAN NOTE] "‘Transit renaissance’ on tap for GTA if funds found, report finds" (Reply)

Ben Spurr's Toronto Star article tells a lovely story.

The Toronto region is in the midst of what politicians are billing as a “transit renaissance,” which will see a major build of badly needed public transportation across the GTHA for the first time in decades.

But according to a new report, unless governments find more funding to pay for those planned lines, the money will run out before the renaissance is even halfway completed.

The report is to be released Tuesday by Move the GTHA, a group of organizations that advocates for transit improvements. Its goal was to quantify the investment still required to complete the ambitious network expansion the province announced eight years ago. The authors found that less than half the planned network has been allocated funding.

Entitled Are We There Yet?, the report was shared with the Star ahead of its release. It calculates that, taking into account the province’s 25-year Big Move plan announced in 2008 as well as the regional express initiative (RER) announced more recently, the total length of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area’s rapid transit network would be 1395 kilometres by 2033.

Of that, the report calculated that 61 kilometres was in place in 2008 and isn’t slated for upgrades and 52 kilometres have been built since that time. (The figure for existing lines doesn’t include the GO network because much of is it slated for substantial service improvements.)