Mayor Vrbanovic encouraging us to push Feds to make two-way all-day a priority
Posted Sep 30, 2015 05:23:04 AM.
Last Updated Sep 30, 2015 09:37:57 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Many commuters from our region woke up to the Mayor of Kitchener waiting for them downtown on the GO Train Platform.
Berry Vrbanovic is pushing for us to think about two-way all-day GO Transit from the region to Toronto when voting in the Federal election.
He walked the platform, handing out reading material for commuters, encouraging people in our region to contact the federal candidates in our riding, and ask whether they support two-way all-day GO.
Vrbanovic says there are over 361 thousand of us that could take advantage of the two-way all-day.
“Anytime you post anything on Twitter or Facebook around two-way all-day GO, you end up getting a number of people who engage in the issue,” says Vrbanovic. “This is just another way to get people thinking about it, as they think about how they want to vote in the upcoming Federal Election.”
The Mayor says it would connect 13,000 companies and attract 3,000 new start-ups, which in turn could create over 40,000 new jobs.
It would also benefit us financially, saving over $340-million in commuter and environmental costs.
But, as the Mayor says, there are still major hurdles.
“The biggest issue, quite frankly, is capacity issues, particularly in the Brampton area. Later today, we have a teleconference between mayors and city officials throughout the corridors affected by both lines,” says Vrbanovic. “You’ve heard us reference the missing link, which is a potential train connection for freight rail, between the Southern Line and northern Line, and that would in fact provide for more passenger capacity.”
“We jointly commissioned a report on that, and it was recently accepted at regional council and now we’re looking at building our advocacy around it. Later this week, we’re meeting with CP for example to share it with them and have that discussion.”
The city has two requests: For the feds to work with the province and municipalities to fix the freight/passenger rail, right of way issues and federal funding from the new Building Canada Fund to support two-way all-day GO.
