On September 18th, 2013, the Premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, established a “transit investment strategy advisory panel.” Their mandate was to advise the Province on how to respond to the revenue tools proposed by Metrolinx (also an Ontario agency) to fund transit expansion in the region. Well that panel has just released their final report and you can read it here.
I’d like to highlight 3 things from the report.
1.
The first is their assessment of how Canada’s transit policy framework stacks up against our competitors. Here’s a snippet:
"Canada remains the only G8 country without a coordinated national framework of policies and programs for funding expansion and renewal of transit systems. As shown in the chart opposite, a review of national transit policy frameworks done by the Canadian Urban Transit Association indicates that Canada ranks at the bottom in terms of its engagement in urban public transit."