Transit Hub in Danger (Naturally)

This should come as no surprise given our city’s less than sterling recent track record so far as public transit is concerned, but it appears that our glorious new transit hub is in danger of missing its completion mandate as per government funding deadlines. That’s slap number one. Slap number two was revealed by Rick Henry, the city’s general manager of engineering services, at a council meeting last week. He said that of the 25 local projects that received provincial and federal funding through infrastructure funding programs, only the Transit Hub on Carden St “is at any risk” of not being completed before the required March 31st, 2011 deadline. Naturally.

What’s the hold up, you might ask. Well, like Lex Luthor said, it’s all about land, or make that land that the city doesn’t own. “We’re ready to go with the project but we need that property,” Henry said. “Staff are confident we will acquire the property in time.” As well, negotiations between the city and stakeholders like GO Transit and VIA Rail have been “arduous”, in Henry’s words. “I don’t know what to tell you; whether it’s two weeks or four weeks,” he said. “We think we’re close.” But how close is close, especially given the Federal and Provincial governments’ deadline for project completion by March 2011? “The government will pay us for all work done by March 31st,” Henry said, so if the terminal is 95 per cent complete by that date “we just won’t get the funding for the remaining five per cent.”

Catch up on the issue via these atricles at the Guelph Mercury here and here.