City backs Via Rail plan

Restoring passenger rail through Peterborough good for environment, mayor says

City councillors say they support a plan from Via Rail to start a new $5.2-billion passenger train service between Toronto and Quebec City with a stop in Peterborough.

Mayor Daryl Bennett moved that councillors support the plan at a committee meeting on Monday night at City Hall.

In an email conversation on Tuesday, Bennett wrote that a rail service would be good for the environment, for job creation and for the economy in Peterborough.

Meanwhile the local airport has been upgraded and Highway 407 is being extended - and Bennett wrote that rail service would be another boon for the city.

“Mass transportation links are critical infrastructure for environmental and economic sustainbility,” he wrote.

Under the resolution, councillors say they support the plan and they also call on the federal government to fund it.

Furthermore, they are asking the provincial government to include this train service on a list of priority infrastructure projects for Ontario.

Councillors voted to support the plan without much discussion Monday.

They aren’t the only area politicians that want to see a new passenger rail service: The Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus (EOWC) is also calling on the federal and provincial governments to financially back the project.

Yves Desjardins-Siciliano, Via Rail’ s CEO and president, announced the plan last fall in Peterborough.

He was at a public gathering at The Venue in November when he detailed plans for a passenger train from Toronto through to Peterborough, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City.

He said the plan needs approval from the federal government. If approved soon, the train could begin running as soon as 2020.

Desjardins-Siciliano said the idea for this rail service came from local advocates who have been pushing for years for a passenger train from Havelock to Toronto.

In 2010, the Ontario government’s Metrolinx agency issued a report that found a Toronto-Peterborough service would cost a lot more than $300 million to set up.

That led to a group forming that advocated for a separate service called the Shining Waters Railway, after then Peterborough Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro commissioned a study that found that a standalone Toronto Peter borough passenger service was feasible.

Del Mastro had hoped that service would be up and running by July 1, 2014.