A motion will be presented at city hall on Monday to drop council’s request that the Hamilton Street Railway (HSR) be put in charge of operating Hamilton’s light rail transit (LRT) line.
Councillor Aidan Johnson’s motion would endorse the original, integrated design-build-finance-operate-maintain model.
Johnson says that means having the province of Ontario, who he notes owns the tracks and owns the trains, put in charge of operations.
He believes that is a better option from an “efficiency perspective” and “from a financial responsibility perspective.”
Johnson notes that city staff have projected an extra cost of $750,000 each year to have the city operate LRT, which he describes as an “unacceptable” price tag.
He’d rather invest that money in what he calls “gigantic social and environmental needs” in Hamilton, such as social housing.
Johnson concludes that whether “we are going to deliver LRT in a more efficient or a less efficient form” is “really what we’re talking about on Monday.”
Hamilton’s proposed east-west LRT line would run from Eastgate Square to McMaster University. Major construction is scheduled to start in 2019 and continuing until 2024.
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