A round of applause followed Waterloo region Chair Karen Redman's assessment that Cambridge deserves and needs the ION light rail transit this morning.
Redman was at the Galt Country Club for a breakfast conversation with Cambridge Chamber of Commerce CEO Greg Durocher and other Cambridge business leaders, where she shared her thoughts on why the next phase of the LRT is inevitable.
"It has to come to Cambridge because what we have right now is half an LRT," she said to a room of nodding heads and scattered applause.
Redman is aware the current LRT is not a perfect system, but maintains that this type of transit makes developers' mouths water at the prospect of building projects along the route.
"This is absolutely essential for the kind of investment we've seen in the Kitchener-Waterloo corridor. This is about $5 billion of private funds that have gone to knowing that this transit is available," she added. "We need rails in the ground, in cement and we need a completed LRT."
The current price tag for the Cambridge expansion sits at a whopping $4.5 billion. This is a fee that came to no surprise to Durocher, who helped champion the ION during the first stage in Kitchener-Waterloo.
"I might have been the only one in the region that wasn't surprised when it came out it was going to cost $4.5 billion," he said. "Everybody knew that 12 to 13-years-ago when we decided to move forward in the staged approach that Cambridge was going to be exponentially more expensive."
One of the main reasons why the region opted for the staged approach was due to a $250 million bridge it will need to build over the Grand River. The region also wanted to secure provincial and federal funding to ease the financial burden on Waterloo region residents.
According to Redman, both the premier and prime minister have supported funding to LRT programs across Ontario, including the Cambridge expansion.
She also notes, the longer we wait, the higher the price tag for the construction.
"My question to those who are opposed; we've paid into our existing LRT, why wouldn't we (Cambridge) want our fair share?" Redman asked. "It's what Cambridge needs and what they deserve."
Durocher and the chair are expecting similar investment into the city that has been seen in the KW area. Billions of dollars of private money that will boost the local and regional economy and help set up the future of the region.
"Even on Hespeler Road it could be 10 times what they were seeing in Kitchener or Waterloo," added Durocher. "We have on our doorstep $50 billion to $80 billion of reinvestment from the private sector."
This is a development that will help generations of existing residents and also prepare for the massive population boom that experts are calling for.
Durocher notes that the region's population will reach over one million people in the next 25 years.
As someone who sat on city council for nine years and helped form the Grand River Transit system, Durocher has been a champion of blending municipal and regional operations to better serve the community.
"Rationalization just makes sense to me," said Durocher. "I tell my colleagues all the time, you need to sit down in dialogue openly and honestly about what we can do to provide more efficient and effective services for the residents."
He asked Redman about the possibility of amalgamation and said there are only two options, everyone comes together as one, or it stays status quo.
"I'm not quite sure where this is all headed, but why would we throw away our brand as a region," Redman said.
The regional chair doesn't see the benefits of dissolving the region like the provincial government did in Peel, and insists that doing so could have many unintended consequences.
With the resignation of the housing and municipal affairs minister, Steve Clark, the decision to appoint a facilitator has now gone to legislative committees; a move that Redman thinks is a sign the motion will die.
"So even though I've said legislative committee is maybe where we send things to die, the reality is sunlight is a pretty good disinfectant," she added. "There needs to be open and honest dialogue from the community so we can see if this is something that actually is a good idea."
The conversation around the LRT and amalgamation is not going anywhere and the regional government is still trying to secure funding from higher levels of government to start the next phase of the ION transit line.
"It's very important that we continue to advocate to the provincial and the federal government and say, it's our turn and we need to complete this," said Redman.
