Upload of Highway 174 and LRT: we need more than photo-ops

On Monday morning, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and Ontario Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria were all smiles at a pre-planned photo-op as they signed yet another agreement to advance the upload of Highway 174 and Ottawa’s LRT.

MPP Stephen Blais said, “I tried to be optimistic at first, but instead of the Minister coming to Ottawa to announce a dedicated timeline and funding, he came to simply reaffirm the same old commitment that he already made to Ottawa residents.

The upload of Ottawa’s LRT was promised last year and the upload of Highway 174 was promised two years ago. Zero progress has been made on both, and all we got from Monday’s re-announcement was another photo-op.

The sad part about all of this is that the Premier and his government are trying to convince us that they care about fairness for Ottawa residents, and the Mayor is trying to convince us that this is somehow progress. It isn’t.

Enough is enough. I’m tired of hearing the same commitments with no progress.

When there is an idea for infrastructure in Toronto, it happens overnight with the snap of the Premier’s fingers. It’s beyond time for Ottawa to get its fair share, and for the Mayor and his Council to stop settling for table scraps.”