Doug Ford’s Transit plan

PC leader Doug Ford’s first announcement in the provincial election campaign tried to ignite voters with transit plans including money for Hamilton and all day GO service for Niagara.

“It’s time to think big and build a transit that we need and that’s what we are going to do”.

Ford re-confirming 1 billion provincial dollars for Hamilton but there was no direct mention of light rail transit. Even Ford’s tweet spoke about Ottawa and Kitchener-Waterloo LRT but when it came to Hamilton the only funding mentioned was for “Hamilton transit.”

“Ford said he supported LRT that was right out of his mouth…. that he supported public transit LRT in the city of Hamilton.” Mayor Fred Esienberger.

But Ford changed his tone, saying the city could decide the fate of the project and that if Hamilton doesn’t want the LRT the city can keep the billion dollars for infrastructure. But the mayor calls that deceiving.

“That would say that every municipality in the province of Ontario would be asking for exactly the same thing if that were true in Hamilton.”

Over 100 million dollars of provincial money has already been spent on the LRT in Hamilton and Fred Eisenberger believes the LRT will become a reality in the city regardless of what leader is elected in June.