The Ontario government is investing $790,000 to help the municipality of Kawartha Lakes improve public transit in Lindsay.
“These transit projects will make a real difference in people’s lives,” said Ontario Minister of Infrastructure Laurie Scott, who announced the funding on Friday morning (August 16) at Lindsay Transit’s fleet services operations facility in Lindsay.
“Better public transit creates stronger communities. It helps people spend less time commuting to work and home, and more time doing the things they love with those they care about most.”
The funding comes from the public transit stream of the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP), a 10-year $30-billion fund cost-shared between federal, provincial, and municipal governments that provides support to help municipalities repair or build critical infrastructure.
The municipality of Kawartha Lakes submitted an application earlier this year to ICIP for funding for transit infrastructure requirements, as part of the municipality’s Transit Master Plan, a 10-year plan (2018 to 2027) focused on improving service, infrastructure, accessibility, and route network design throughout the municipality. Currently, Kawartha Lakes offers public transit through Lindsay Transit, which has three bus routes in the town of Lindsay,
“Support and investment such as the ICIP funding allows us to further meet the needs as outlined in our Transit Master Plan,” said Kawartha Lakes Mayor Andy Letham.
Kawartha Lakes will use the $790,000 in funding for new buses, new bus routes, and new bus stops as well as a new transit hub and expanding Lindsay Transit’s bus maintenance facility. It will also be used for transit software upgrades, five new replacement buses, seven bus-mounted bike racks, and more bike routes linking riders to road networks.
“We are extremely grateful for the success of the application,” Letham added. “As a growing municipality, it is important that we maintain our current infrastructure in place so that we can continue to move forward with necessary improvements to transit over the course of the 10-year plan. Good things happen when different levels of government work together for our residents.”
“Our vehicles require upgrading and we want to ensure that safety and accessibility features are a top priority for our riders,” said Kawartha Lakes manager of fleet and transit Todd Bryant.
“I am confident riders will see the difference immediately as we update our fleet, provide quicker and greater access to our Specialized Transit, and provide upgraded features to improve and enhance services.”
The Kawartha Lakes project is one of 57 new transit projects being nominated outside of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. These transit projects are worth more than $100 million in provincial funding.
So far, Ontario has nominated 350 infrastructure projects to the federal government. The projects are now with the federal government for final funding decisions, as they are reviewed for eligibility under the ICIP program. Some projects could begin as soon as fall 2019.
