Canada’s plans for permanent transit funding could help double ridership on mass transit and reduce transport emission by 65 million tonnes by 2035—but only if the investment materializes, and comes with the right policies, finds a new report by Équiterre and Environmental Defence Canada.
The report urges [pdf] Ottawa to ensure that its forthcoming Permanent Public Transit Fund (PPTF) realizes its potential to deliver both climate and housing solutions by including key policies like “public transit operating funding, federal strings to encourage housing density near public transit, zero-emission bus procurement requirements, and incentives for cities to speed up public transit service with dedicated bus lanes.”
It arrives as the Canadian government inches towards creating the PPTF, a program first announced in February, 2021, which would see an annual C$3 billion being injected into public transit systems across Canada. The target date for launch is 2026, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the Federation of Canadian Municipalities as recently as last May that a deal was just months away, the Globe and Mail reports.
But this week, mayors of 15 major cities led by Toronto’s Olivia Chow, Calgary’s Jyoti Gondek, Winnipeg’s Scott Gillingham, and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities were warning that the funding might not materialize.
“We were promised infrastructure funding, and to this day, we have not heard of a plan,” FCM President Scott Pearce told media. “So as the budget comes closer and closer, we’re getting more and more concerned that there’s no plan.”
Read the rest of this story here.