It’s not about you, LRT is for Hamilton

It’s time for bold, long-term vision, and conviction

Our way of dealing with major projects has fallen into a pattern of infighting and short-sightedness. That needs to change.

I expect people in Winona, Waterdown and Elfrida were pretty bummed back in 1969 when Hamilton’s new hospital was built at McMaster. “How’s that going to help me?” they might have asked.

Well, with luck, you might live your whole life here and never have to use the hospital — but is that an argument for it not being built?

Aside from the babies born, mothers cared for, lives saved and improved, MUMC (now Children’s Hospital) is a gigantic piece of the GHA’s infrastructure, employing thousands, from docs and nurses to food service, clerical and cleaners. It’s helped make Hamilton a centre and a magnet for health care, with major social/economic spinoffs for the entire region.

If you think of LRT as another chunk of infrastructure along these lines, the question of whether you will ride it is obviously unimportant.

How many hundreds of hospital staff live in the Gage Park, Strathcona, Rosedale, or Beasley neighbourhoods? How many have to zip back and forth to meetings at Mac’s new downtown medical building at Bay and Main through the day?

Now multiply this by all the other enterprises and employers along the route.

We have a new Mac campus in the Stelco Tower, student residences coming on James at King William, the Royal Connaught condos, all the new Vranich buildings, a highrise proposal for the Kresge’s site on King at Hughson, and much more. A midtown population explosion is building.

Along the LRT corridor, underused three-storey buildings with vacant commercial at street level and apartments above, are being purchased to be renovated or replaced with higher density buildings.

Do the math: tax dollars come into the city treasury from every build, every new occupancy.

As these neighbourhoods are repopulated with young families and entrepreneurs, that’s vitality in former tax “dead zones” — activity which has already begun, on the promise of LRT.

When they wanted to twin the Skyway, people said, “It’s too expensive; we don’t need it.” When they wanted to build the Linc, people said, “It’s too expensive; we don’t need it.” When they wanted to build the Red Hill Expressway, there were 50 years of “It’s too expensive; we don’t need it.”

Imagine getting around Hamilton today without those bypass routes that keep major transport traffic out of our city.

Hamilton needs to start thinking like the big city it has become.

Our way of dealing with major projects has fallen into a pattern of infighting and short-sightedness. That needs to change. It’s time for a bold, united, long-term vision, and the conviction to stick with it.

Chicago passed a 60-year plan for its waterfront and transit. No matter who was on council, they followed the plan, putting pieces in place year by year. And who has fabulous transit and the most exciting waterfront on the Great Lakes?

It takes vision! Please, Hamilton, prove you can be a grown-up city and move beyond ward-centric, “re-elect me” thinking. This is a one-off opportunity. Please don’t let us down.