PM Harper pledges $2.6B in federal funding for SmartTrack

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has announced $2.6 billion in federal funding for Toronto Mayor John Tory’s SmartTrack proposal.

Harper said the money would be available through the government’s Public Transit Fund once an official application is received and approved.

“SmartTrack would slash commuting times for tens of thousands of hard working Torontonians,” Harper said from the TTC Hillcrest Complex in Toronto.

“Bottom line it will mean better, faster commutes for hundreds of thousands of people, and in that our government is very proud to be a partner.”

“Ambitious investments in infrastructure…has been fundamental to our economy and to who we are as a country.”

The financial commitment represents about one-third of the total cost for SmartTrack — the ambitious plan to electrify existing GO lines that helped propel Tory to the mayor’s seat.

“(SmartTrack) is vital to our economy and jobs, that’s what SmartTrack is to the core…it will ensure this city and region’s economic success,” a gracious Mayor Tory said after Harper announced the funding.

“This is a great day, and an historic day,” he added. “We finally have a federal government, for the first time in the country’s history, that is willing to commit predictable, stable funding to public transit.”

In April, the provincial budget included $2.8 billion for SmartTrack — to electrify the Stouffville and Kitchener lines.

The mayor has always maintained that the projected $8-billion price tag for SmartTrack would have to be split evenly three ways between the city and the provincial and federal governments.

When asked by a reporter what would happen if Toronto city council voted against SmartTrack, Harper said he was confident it would be passed and the city would come up with its third of the cash.

“All major announcements like this that involve partners, require ultimately the sign off of every single partner,” he said.

“And far be it for me to tell Toronto city council how to vote or not to vote. But when the federal government comes along with $2.6 billion dollars to assist a visionary project of the mayor on which he was just elected, I would have a very optimistic view of the possibility of city council adopting this project.”

In February, city council approved $1.65 million more to study the viability of SmartTrack. It had earlier approved a $750,000 study.

SmartTrack will provide service from the Airport Corporate Centre in the west, southeast to Union Station and northeast to Markham in the east. Twenty-two new station stops are proposed and five interchanges with the TTC rapid transit network.