What’s Happening?
Metrolinx and Doug Ford’s provincial Conservative government are privatizing your public transit.
Unless our Local City Council steps up with us to defend it. If we don’t act now, Hamilton’s new Light Rail Transit (LRT) will be a Public-Private Partnership (P3) with a private company operating and maintaining the LRT, while Hamilton residents pay the bill. We have seen firsthand what P3 delivery of Transit looks like in Toronto and Ottawa. Over budget, behind schedule, expensive and dangerous!
Privatization Peril
We are watching the privatization of our healthcare system. It is disastrous.
Locally, Hamilton’s experiment with privatizing our water system failed miserably and cost us dearly. Privatization of public services never goes well. And we are all left paying the bill. The safety of riders and drivers on our busiest transit line shouldn’t be left to private interests that put profit before people. In Hamilton, we have a chance to push back against this privatization and keep transit public.
DBFOM – OMG?
Transit lines across Ontario are being delivered under the private sector model of (DBFOM) Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Maintain.
This means one giant company delivers all aspects of the transit delivery project, from installing the infrastructure to running the transit system. It takes the control of our transit system out of local hands. It removes any accountability to Hamiltonians and our leaders. The model was promised to deliver better, cheaper, faster transit. It has done none of those things.
Troubling P3 examples
Toronto’s Ellington CrossTown and Ottawa’s O-Train LRT followed this dangerous model.
This has resulted in the CrossTown being years behind schedule and the tracks and train still aren’t certified. In Ottawa, the model has been so disastrous trains are literally falling off the tracks. Neglect in maintenance, understaffing, and poor pay have created a system in Ottawa so dangerous it was the subject of a Judicial Review. Ottawa councillors absolved themselves of the responsibility by handing maintenance over to a private company. We cannot allow our local Councillors to do this. Hamilton residents are responsible for paying for our LRT’s operation and maintenance therefore we can demand better!
We Won Before, We can do it Again!
We can stop the privatization train wreck.
In the Summer of 2017 our Keep Transit Public campaign WON. That campaign resulted in a collection of over 6,000 signatures in support of an HSR-run LRT. Along with a major rally, extensive local media engagement and positive coverage, Hamilton city councillors voted 9 to 4 in favour of a request to “Keep Transit Public”. The motion requested that Hamilton Street Railway (HSR) operate and maintain the Light Rail Transit system. Privatized public transit was a concept Hamilton did away with long ago – it didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.
What can you do?
Keep Transit Public to avoid the catastrophic experience of other cities.
We need your help to remind city council to vote once again to keep transit public.