Feds announce $758 million in funding for new Line 2 TTC subway trains
CTV
The TTC will get funding from the federal government to replace aging trains on Line 2, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has announced.
The TTC will get funding from the federal government to replace aging trains on Line 2, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland has announced.
Ottawa will send $758 million to the city as part of its $30 billion Canada Public Transit Fund. The city and the province had previously put forward $1.52 billion together to fund the 55 new trains.
Prior to Friday’s announcement, the TTC had said that the absence of a federal commitment to upgrading the trains on Line 2 presented a “serious issue.”
Unlike the newer trains introduced on Line 1 in the early 2010s, the trains on the east-west line will be approximately 30 years old, and at the end of their design life, by 2026.
"We know how important the TTC is, we know that more than two million people a day rely on this important subway, and we know that Toronto is growing, and we need to have public transit that grows with the needs of our growing city," Freeland said at a news conference in Toronto.
Freeland noted that the funding announced Friday is included in the $1.2 billion earmarked for the TTC over the next decade through the Canada Public Transit Fund. She said the new trains will be built in Thunder Bay, however interim TTC CEO Greg Percy said that the Request For Proposal (RFP) to bring the new trains to market has not yet been released.
At least $300 million of the funds announced Friday will go towards the operation of the Eglinton Crosstown and Finch West LRTs, neither of which are currently open to the public.
