Hamilton Hamilton Line B LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

Back when Mulroney announced the cancellation, I asked a friend who works in transit planning elsewhere in the GTA what the general reaction from transit folks was - was this project seen as defensible or iffy?. He just shrugged and said, “Queens’ Park’s plan to cancel was one of the poorest-kept secrets in the transit industry”. (He went on to say that the ‘pro’s’ thought the business case was just as good, and the true costs no more extreme, than the other projects that are/have been going ahead)

I don’t know whether we need more transparency or whether we just need to read tea leaves better and make more noise to call out the decisionmakers when their support appears to be lagging.

Hamilton is a cautionary tale. The folks in Ancaster and Dundas aren’t cretins, they simply don’t see value in transit because to a large extent the don’t need or use it. And they don’t go into central Hamilton, ever. There really is a political divide that we haven’t found a way to overcome.

- Paul
 
crs1026 said:
Hamilton is a cautionary tale. The folks in Ancaster and Dundas aren’t cretins, they simply don’t see value in transit because to a large extent the don’t need or use it. And they don’t go into central Hamilton, ever. There really is a political divide that we haven’t found a way to overcome.
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Simple - don't include them in a geography-based governance structure. Megacities of the Harris' Era were implemented with a fairly specific goal in mind (hint: it is not about saving money)

AoD
 
^Exactly. Dundas will always have that small town thinking, while Ancaster and Hamilton Mountain will always be car-loving communities (a far more extreme example of Mississauga). Stoney Creek is the only amalgamated community with any hope in terms of supporting transit, all the others really couldn't care less for it.
 
^I’m convinced that the Hamilton announcement was already decided and simply held waiting a suitable opportunity. That may have involved waiting for the trumped-up numbers report, or it may have been even more opportunistic: just about every senior journalist on the transit/urban file was elaewhere, attending Toronto City Council that day, dealing with a bigger-headline story. The Mulroney non-photo-op, which sure looked to be hastily arranged, was mostly covered by junior reporters who were the only ones available. That can’t be a coincidence.

There is every indication that the “pause” by the incoming government resulted in a prioritization of ML spending from the Wynne “sky’s the limit” fantasy wish list to a more serious list of what’s affordable and what takes precedence. There have been enough big ticket announcements and contracts let since that pause to conclude that it wasn’t (as we feared at that time) a whole-scale cancellation of all transit projects. The thing that Hamilton had working against it (in addition to voter ambivalence) was - no shovels in the ground and no cancellation penalties.

That overall reprioritisation was a good thing IMHO....but....Since ML under Wynne had been totally secretive about which projects were actually in gear, Ford was able to make a bunch of cuts or deferrals without being accused of cutting anything. Hamilton was an exception to that - it was already publicly on the books and had to be surgically removed. So they waited until the coast was mostly clear......

- Paul
 
crs1026 said:
^I’m convinced that the Hamilton announcement was already decided and simply held waiting a suitable opportunity. That may have involved waiting for the trumped-up numbers report, or it may have been even more opportunistic: just about every senior journalist on the transit/urban file was elaewhere, attending Toronto City Council that day, dealing with a bigger-headline story. The Mulroney non-photo-op, which sure looked to be hastily arranged, was mostly covered by junior reporters who were the only ones available. That can’t be a coincidence.

There is every indication that the “pause” by the incoming government resulted in a prioritization of ML spending from the Wynne “sky’s the limit” fantasy wish list to a more serious list of what’s affordable and what takes precedence. There have been enough big ticket announcements and contracts let since that pause to conclude that it wasn’t (as we feared at that time) a whole-scale cancellation of all transit projects. The thing that Hamilton had working against it (in addition to voter ambivalence) was - no shovels in the ground and no cancellation penalties.

That overall reprioritisation was a good thing IMHO....but....Since ML under Wynne had been totally secretive about which projects were actually in gear, Ford was able to make a bunch of cuts or deferrals without being accused of cutting anything. Hamilton was an exception to that - it was already publicly on the books and had to be surgically removed. So they waited until the coast was mostly clear......

- Paul
Click to expand...

The problem we have is that for the last 50 years we not building much. Then, about 10 years ago, there started a big push, and now it is unaffoordable. Had we not stopped 50 years ago, it would be more than affordable.
 
crs1026 said:
Hamilton is a cautionary tale. The folks in Ancaster and Dundas aren’t cretins, they simply don’t see value in transit because to a large extent the don’t need or use it. And they don’t go into central Hamilton, ever. There really is a political divide that we haven’t found a way to overcome.
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Not directly related to transit but rural-urban 'frictions' exist in many of the geographically large single-tier municipalities such as Chatham-Kent and Ottawa as well as some regions. The folks of Uxbridge and Brock likely have less passion for spending tax dollars on transit than their their southern counterparts.
 
innsertnamehere said:
This was likely a part of the province's "pause" of all projects, including the Hamilton LRT. Of course the private bidders had stopped work, so had the province. The province only resumed work a month or two before the cancellation.. (which makes me wonder why they didn't just cancel it a few months earlier).
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So the timeline is something like this:
April 2018: RFP issued to three bidders for Hamilton LRT.
June 7, 2018: Doug Ford is elected premier of Ontario.
August 30, 2018: A spending freeze is issued on the Hamilton LRT and other projects. (1)
March 29, 2019: Eight-month spending freeze is lifted, province confirms project is "good to go forward". Consortiums are given 6 month extension [until spring 2020] to submit bids. (2)
April 2, 2019: Metrolinx purchases 14.5 acre property to be the LRT maintenance and storage facility. (3)
Mid-2019: Bidders don't trust that the provincial government will actually go through with this. Probably stopped working on their bids in late-2018 and never resumed.
December 16, 2019: Project is officially cancelled citing budget issues.
 
Voltz said:
It won't happen, no one is going to bid on it.
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Hah!

I'm an Ottawan -- born in Ottawa.
I remember when the Ottawa LRT was cancelled in 2006.

Siemens sues for $177M over Ottawa's cancelled LRT

And guess what is in Ottawa today?....

(Mind you, our LRT is more similar to the more reliable Kitchener-Waterloo ION LRT, but you get the idea)

Many cancelled transit lines got resurrected over future elections, often under slightly different routings and different budget. The resurrection forces is very strong on the Hamilton LRT for the next 10 years, and it will likely be re-budgetted while redrawn (perhaps as-is, perhaps minor modifications, or perhaps combining A-line and B-line LRT into one omnibus budget funded triparte by election 2030 or so, if demographics continue its current journey -- it is only a matter of time before enough wards would be willing to band together to municipally pitch one-third). The seeds have been sown -- angry developers, angry residents, angry politicans. There's no way that the 2020 suggestions will survive election 2022 unscathed. Bank on it.

In addition, Hamilton is the city that had the largest resident-led public LRT rally of any city -- it looked larger than the 1970s "Save Our Streetcars" rally led by Steve Munro. there is way more pro-LRT residents in Hamilton than any other Canadian city. The Force is strong with this one, and many future elections will factor that in.

It's kind of dissapointing this is going to be churned up. Just hope we don't churn nearly as much as the Scarborough route. Waste of time, waste of money -- just build the LRT already.

TL;DR: History tells me there is a better than 50% chance that the Hamilton LRT will be resurrected this decade.
 
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