It’s an LRT election (again)
LRT dominated the 2014 election, and the fate of the project is up for debate once again Oct. 22. Here are some of the big questions being asked about the largest project in Hamilton’s history.
THE LRT DEBATE stretches back over many years, contentious debates and council votes. The project is referenced in nearly 1,000 Spectator stories and news items since 2008.
The debate does not lend itself to brevity. But here’s a recap of some of the ongoing arguments:
What’s in it for me?
This is the most popular question in the long, tortured history of LRT planning in Hamilton.
The project is envisioned as the backbone of a growing rapid transit system that will eventually stretch out to serve the Mountain and suburban communities like Waterdown. LRT fans argue the line will also spur development, create needed housing and even, gradually, tax relief to suburban Hamilton.
The tax shift argument goes like this: new development brings new taxpayers and higher property values to the LRT corridor. If values along the LRT line rise faster than the city average, nearby homeowners pay a higher proportion of taxes — providing relief to outlying areas like Ancaster and Waterdown.
The 14-kilometre route was originally estimated to be worth 108 new developments and $82 million in new city taxes, fees and other revenue over 15 years. About 3,000 construction jobs over several years are also expected, along with hundreds of permanent jobs. In nearby Kitchener-Waterloo, a yet-to-open LRT is already credited with attracting $2-billion-plus in private investment along the corridor.
Those arguments are being hammered home — again — by a coalition of LRT-supporting business groups, including the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, the Realtor’s Association of Hamilton-Burlington, the Hamilton Halton Construction Association, and the Hamilton Halton Home Builders’ Association. They say the promise of LRT is part of the reason for a spike in new residential units built in and around the downtown over the past few years. That’s a big deal for a city with a housing crisis, argued Tyler Pearson, co-founder of developer Malleum Partners.
“Part of it is supply and demand. The greater the supply, the more impact you have on affordability,” said Pearson, who has residentialand-commercial projects on the go along King Street East.
Pearson said he’s worried about the election debate. “To think that (killing the project) now would even be an option is, I think, reckless and irresponsible,” he said. “If it doesn’t go through, that would certainly have repercussions for the amount of investment flowing into this city.”
Skeptics rightly note some developments will happen regardless of transit in already booming areas, whether in Hamilton or Kitchener or Ottawa. And local studies have also cautioned factors like poverty or crime can make some areas less attractive to developers, LRT line or not.
Sgro says he believes rapid transit lines guide development more than they generate development. He also argues the projected economic development linked to LRT is “minuscule” compared to what an already booming Hamilton building industry sees annually without light rail. But Eisenberger argues it is already impossible to ignore the impact of LRT on development up and down the corridor. Jason Thorne, the city’s head of planning and economic development, also told council LRT is increasingly cited by prospective developers pitching projects to the city.
Some of those projects are in the booming downtown or affluent west end, like a proposed 20-plus-storey condo at Queen Street and King that developer Paul Kemper has said “we wouldn’t be building” without LRT.
But it also includes a proposal for around 600 apartments, townhomes and condo units in a massive redevelopment near Roxborough Park that is meant to rebuild crumbling social housing stock for CityHousing Hamilton. The development consortium has listed LRT as one of the factors in pursuing the project. It it goes ahead, it will be the biggest redevelopment of its kind in the history of the east end.
Is it too late to switch gears?
Once upon a time, shovels were supposed to be in the ground for Hamilton’s LRT this fall.
The original timeline called for a contract award before the provincial election — but council arguments over the route and a failed, last-minute demand to allow city workers to run LRT delayed the RFP release until April.
Despite the delay, $105 million has been spent on the project, 45 properties have been purchased and dozens of residents and business forced to relocate.
But history suggests no large transit project is guaranteed until construction begins — and sometimes not even then.
A newly elected City of Ottawa council killed a government-funded LRT project despite a signed contract with a builder in 2006. (Fun fact: Ancaster Coun. Lloyd Ferguson once worked for the building consortium that was eventually paid $40 million in penalties as a result of the broken contract.) A couple of elections later and Ottawa has now nearly completed a different LRT project.
Perhaps most famously, an incoming Tory provincial government literally filled in a subway tunnel under construction in Toronto when it came to power following the NDP in 1995.
Hamilton LRT fans argue stopping now would be a huge waste of money and time. Metrolinx has spent $105 million so far and committed another $30 million to various contracts. About $45 million has been spent to buy 45 properties. The city has also invested years building a master transportation plan and creating special transit corridor planning rules around LRT.
LRT opponents argue Metrolinx and the province, not the city, would be on the hook for any penalties related to ending the fledgling RFP and that purchased properties can be resold. The city’s plan to deal with car traffic shunted off the planned LRT route is not universally popular, either, so don’t expect project opponents to mourn the loss of a city transportation plan that revolves around light rail.
Quantifying the losses to businesses and residents is tougher. Many buildings on King Street have been boarded up in anticipation of LRT construction. But other owners who have not yet sold to Metrolinx hold out hope they can stay if the project dies.
Some members of the Hamilton Tenants Solidarity Network have also panned the project, arguing the city has not done enough to protect poor residents from displacement ahead of construction.
Is there really a billion dollars up for grabs?
Depends who you ask.
Premier Doug Ford originally suggested during the May provincial election campaign that if a new city council killed LRT he would allow Hamilton to keep the money for other transit or infrastructure projects.
But new Tory MPP Donna Skelly appeared to narrow the options this month, specifying the funding “is for LRT or the other form of transit that the city council chooses to follow and the infrastructure projects associated with it.”
Skelly, who is personally opposed to the project, also stressed the province will leave the decision up to council. She made that statement, however, as a participant in a “Stop the Train” telephone town hall with anti-LRT mayoral candidate Sgro.
Eisenberger said the MPP’s clarification torpedoes the “totally false” idea that the province — which is also publicly searching for budget savings — might hand over $1 billion to a single city with no strings attached. He also pointed out all provincially funded projects need to go through a due diligence and approval process – and right now, no other project other than LRT has approval.
“There is no pot of gold to spend as we see fit,” he said.
Sgro, on the other hand, said he takes Ford at his word. He sent out a release Thursday saying his campaign reached out to the Premier’s office for clarity and received a reiteration of an August statement made by the Ministry of Transportation, also received and reported by the Spectator at that time.
That statement reads, in part, “Our government will wait and see what the city’s transit priorities are after the municipal election, and whether it is for the $1 billion LRT project or other projects that council wants, the Ontario Government will be there with funding.”
Michael Pattison, a mayoral candidate and former downtown café owner, might have best-encapsulated the skepticism around the still-vague provincial funding promise in a recent Tweet.
“Until the Province shows us the parameters of any investment, we seem to be allowed to promise anything. Hey Hamilton; what colour Unicorn would you like?”
What’s best for transit?
Opponents of LRT have long argued cheaper bus rapid transit (BRT) could serve more of the city for the same amount of cash. Supporters, though, say light rail is better for the environment, more likely to be widely used than buses and a necessary upgrade in the city’s busiest transit corridor where bus riders are regularly left behind.
Sgro has called for a system of “express buses” running along the city’s yet-to-be-implemented BLAST network. (Each letter in BLAST represents a transit route — the B-line is the Main-King corridor — meant to strategically connect the urban city and suburban communities via rapid transit.)
The mayoral challenger argues building LRT first is “backwards” and that the city’s oft-reinterpreted Rapid Ready report (which prompted council to ask for LRT money in the first place) requires the city to build ridership across Hamilton before considering light rail.
Eisenberger calls that “deliberate misinformation,” arguing council is committed to improving bus service and building ridership across the city in tandem with LRT. He also criticized calls to simply stop LRT and buy more buses as “back-of-the-napkin transit planning” that ignores a decade of study and debate.
Past studies, meanwhile, suggest Hamilton’s prospective “Day 1” ridership for a light rail line could be as high as 31,000, or competitive with early ridership of other middle-sized North American LRT cities like Minneapolis, Seattle and Denver.
It is also fair to note “express buses” are not the same as bus rapid transit (BRT), which is usually separated from car traffic.
Critics rightly note LRT would not be much faster than existing bestcase B-line bus service between McMaster University and Eastgate Square.
But it should be vastly more reliable, thanks to tracks separated from car lanes and signal priority that prevents trains from being held hostage by traffic snarls. LRT cars will also carry more passengers — say 130 compared to 80 or fewer on a large HSR bus.
That’s a big deal for transit riders who are routinely left behind at Bline bus stops by HSR buses too full to take on passengers. The city logs around 400 “pass-bys” a month on the King-Main corridor — that’s 400 missed stops for would-be passengers carrying groceries in the cold, or trying to get to work on time.
Light rail is also best for the environment from both a transit and development perspective, says mayoral candidate Ute Schmid-Jones, who is focusing her campaign on “climate resilience.”
What’s best for Hamilton’s aging infrastructure?
Sgro’s campaign signs state “Stop the Train” and “Fix infrastructure.” He tells The Spectator the city’s focus should be on dealing with a welldocumented $3 billion-plus infrastructure backlog, not spending the biggest provincial investment in the city’s history on a single corridor.
LRT fans reply transit-oriented development through the core provides infrastructure backlog relief because it adds taxpaying residents without adding to the infrastructure burden – unlike low-density builds sprawled across greenfield areas of the city without existing pipes, roads and sidewalks.
The LRT project also means provincial taxpayers, rather than just local residents, will help pay for whatever pipes, sidewalks and pedestrian spaces are dug up and rebuilt underneath the planned LRT line. (Critics note some of the infrastructure that will be replaced isn’t all that old, which seems like a waste.)
Metrolinx would also replace the crumbling 62-year-old Longwood bridge and build a long-sought Frid Street extension on the dime of provincial taxpayers, thanks to a LRT spur line to connect to a planned storage and maintenance facility.
Sgro has argued the city could buy many new buses and still have money left over for major upgrade projects like the Waterdown bypass, for instance. (The city would still have to find operating cash to run those new buses, though, as well as a facility large enough to hold them. )
Eisenberger calls this idea “selling a fallacy.” He said if the project money must be spent on transit — as Hamilton’s lone Tory MPP recently suggested — that rules out road projects like the Waterdown bypass. He also said the city has already put aside $21 million for the bypass and land acquisition is underway.
The LRT route was estimated to be worth 108 new developments and $82 million in new city taxes, fees and other revenue over 15 years.
Despite the delay, $105 million has been spent on the project, 45 properties have been purchased and dozens of residents and business forced to relocate.