Backgrounder

McGuinty Government Delivers Improved GO Transit System

Since 2003, the provincial government has invested $5.6 billion in public transit, including over $1.8 billion in GO Transit. The Province is continuing to support GO Transit by committing $530 million to its capital and operating costs in 2007-08. Highlights of Ontario’s investment in GO Transit since 2003 include:

• Adding more than 9,300 new parking spaces
• Building six new train stations; East Gwillimbury, Mount Pleasant, Kennedy, Lisgar, Barrie South and Milliken
• Purchasing 56 additional new buses, 12 double-decker buses, 70 additional new bi-level passenger railcars and 27 more powerful locomotives.
• Opened new bus terminals at Square One in Mississauga and McMaster University in Hamilton
• Added 500 new bus trips per day
• Extended bus service on the Milton Corridor to the University of Guelph
• Awarded a major contract to modernize the Union Station Signalling system.
• In the December 2007 Fall Economic Statement, $80 million in additional GO Transit funding was announced towards investments in double-decker rail passenger coaches, double-decker buses and track expansion.

Metrolinx*

Metrolinx, an agency created by the Province to develop a seamless and sustainable regional transportation system for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

Metrolinx is developing an integrated regional transportation plan that will integrate local transit and GO Transit across the region. Integrated transit planning will improve our quality of life, reduce the impact on our environment and support a prosperous economy.

Metrolinx has also been charged with creating an implementation plan for MoveOntario 2020, a $17.5-billion investment in public transit — the largest build of its kind in Canadian history. This 12-year plan will help replace 300 million car trips per year.

• The agency is also responsible for coordinating the purchase of transit vehicles on behalf of municipalities, and will ultimately assume responsibility for the operation of the Presto fare card system and GO Transit.
  
  
• GO Transit Rail Improvement Program

• The GO Transit rail infrastructure improvement program is a GTA and Hamilton-wide, multi-project (approx. 13 projects in total), multi-year initiative. Funded under the Canada Strategic Infrastructure Fund (CSIF), with matching federal and provincial funds in the amount of $385 million each, it assumes municipal contributions of up to $235 million (over $1 billion in total).It includes 12 GO rail projects across the system and an expansion of the GO Bus network. These projects are underway, with completion expected in 2010.

In addition to GO Transit, The Ontario government’s commitments to strengthen Ontario’s public transit include:

• an additional $830 million provided for strategic transit projects in the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton through the 2006 MoveOntario initiative. This investment will help ease congestion, improve air quality and create jobs across the province;

• the Presto card — an integrated fare collection system that will eventually enable commuters to travel on public transit from Durham to Hamilton using a single transit card;

• the High Occupancy Vehicle Lane Network Plan — a 25-year project to add HOV and commuter bus lanes to the 400-series highways and the Greater Golden Horseshoe that will ease congestion and offer faster, more reliable commute times to carpoolers and transit users; and

• ReNew Ontario - the government’s infrastructure investment plan. In ReNew Ontario’s first five years, the government will have invested $11.4 billion in public transit, highways, borders and other transportation.                                                                                                            

* formerly known as Greater Toronto Transportation Authority