06-23-2019, 03:16 PM
(06-23-2019, 02:02 PM)timc Wrote:(06-22-2019, 10:31 AM)jeffster Wrote: If you recall, the province initially committed to paying 2/3 of the cost, then they broke that promise, but Ottawa ended up coming through for what the province skipped.
That's not how I remember it. Yes, the province was going to pay 2/3 and broke the promise. But as I recall, the feds were already on board for ~1/3 of the cost, and most of the shortfall was covered through property tax increases.
That’s my understanding as well. We had promises of 1/3 from the federal government and 2/3 from the provincial. But when the steel hit the track, the actual provincial contribution was just over 1/3, leaving almost 1/3 to be financed by the Region itself.
Not the only disappointing transit decision from the previous provincial government. Remember that Rob Ford is only responsible for less than a 2 year delay to the Transit City lines; most of the rest of the delay (so much that the Scarborough LRT lines appear not to be happening, most likely) was caused by dithering from the province. If they had simply re-started the Sheppard LRT process from where it was when Rob Ford stopped it we would now be riding LRT on Sheppard. And incidentally our LRT probably would have opened earlier because we wouldn’t have had to wait for Metrolinx to figure out the custom equipment because they would have needed it for themselves.