Tuesday, October 16th, 2012
TORONTO: Ontario will lead Canada in job creation again, but to get there we need to break traffic gridlock in the economic heart of Canada – the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, PC Leader Tim Hudak said today.
“Our expansion priorities in Toronto will be new subways. World class cities build underground,” Hudak said. “But right we now have too many back seat drives all pointing in different directions.
“This means making one authority accountable for disentangling gridlock and getting the region moving again. It makes sense to give the province’s regional transportation agency, Metrolinx, this responsibility,” Hudak added.
Businesses make decisions about where to locate and when to expand based on the quality of infrastructure necessary to help them compete and succeed. The fact is workers in the Toronto region suffer through the longest commute times in North America. The economic costs of this gridlock are estimated at $6 billion annually in lost productivity. This means lower wages and thousands of jobs lost.
Hudak’s proposals put forward in the latest Ontario PC white paper Paths to Prosperity: An Agenda for Growth, would truly integrate the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area’s rail network by transferring the TTC’s subways and future LRT operations to the province, where they would be joined with the GO rail network for a seamless commuter experience across GO rail, subways and LRTs.
“The province’s GO trains and TTC’s subways are the backbone of the region’s transit system, but the backbone is currently severed,” Hudak said.
Hudak was joined by PC Transportation Critic Frank Klees and a number of Toronto city councilors including Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday, budget chief Mike Del Grande, Denzil Minnan-Wong, and Doug Ford, who support his plan of action to create jobs, growth and break gridlock.
Etobicoke North Councilor Doug Ford said “Tim Hudak is right on for proposing bold new ideas to create jobs and map out a plan to break gridlock, including new subways for Toronto.”
Hudak concluded “Toronto business owners and the city’s economy can’t afford roads ripped up for surface-level transit. That will drive away customers, profits and jobs. Subways on the other hand are once-in-a-generation investments that offer the best return when it comes to speed, quality and value.”
To read Paths to Prosperity: An Agenda for Growth visit: www.ontariopc.com.
