Hamilton: The city of missed opportunities

Is LRT the next victim of short-sighted politics?

It seems that Hamilton’s other motto could be “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” This city has a history of turning down, avoiding, or otherwise botching opportunities that have passed its way. Now it looks like the loss of the LRT will be the next doozy.

The Neighbourhood Improvement Program (NIP) instituted by the federal government in the 1970s offered funding for improving neighbourhoods where residents were low income but were otherwise viable and stable. Hamilton basically ignored this opportunity, but what it did pursue, more than any other city, per capita, was urban renewal, which saw the bulldozing of so much 19th century architecture, replaced with edifices like Jackson Square.

Though smaller in scale, this next example epitomizes Hamilton’s challenge to act. In 1992 the city was offered $5 million from the provincial government to create a new cultural centre as part of attempts to clean up a particularly challenged section of east downtown. The Barton Street Art Village never got off the ground. Delay followed delay as the battles between competing local interests continued, until a change of provincial government, to Harris’ Conservatives, sounded the death knell.

The on-again-off-again Red Hill Expressway was first planned in the 1950s, but took 50 years to be actualized. Millions were spent on legal battles, and residents and politicians vacillated. Many more millions would have been saved if it had been built earlier, and tax and development gains would have been accumulating for far more years.

So now it’s the LRT’s turn. The billion dollars the province has promised will not only pay for the train, but much infrastructure needed along the route. Savings from the latter could be spent on other desperately need infrastructure (transit, bridges, sewers etc.) in other parts of the city. New tax revenue from development along the line will put more money in the city coffers. All those B-Line buses can be used elsewhere in the city. Try and find one growing city in North America that regrets putting in an LRT.

And don’t think our newest Conservative government iteration will really let us spend all that money on something else. Urban Hamilton didn’t vote in one Conservative member. We didn’t earn any graft. We have seen how vindictive Premier Ford can be with the Toronto electoral games.

Hamilton. You pay your provincial taxes. Don’t you want some of that money to find its way back to your doorstep? Why not live up to your old motto: “The Ambitious City.”