CivicAction announced its 27-member league of regional transportation “champions” this week.
The civic leaders, both senior and junior, from across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, will be joining CivicAction chair John Tory and its CEO, Mitzie Hunter, to try to distill what the region’s residents figure are the most important aspects of regional transportation and, by getting them involved, hopefully build a coalition of the willing for whatever taxes will be necessary to build such a system.
“They’ll be leading discussions within their own communities,” Hunter says, taking the form of “in-person forums, online forums and we’ll be able to take this information that we hear back to government.”
The so-called Champions Council will seek to build on the momentum created by other jurisdictions recently, including such unliklely transit cities Los Angeles, Denver and Atlanta, where citizens voted for transportation-specific taxes to build systems they believed in. Specifically, they’ll looking for ways to raise the $40 billion that is required to fulfill the terms of the region’s 25-year transit plan.
The council will meet periodically between now and June 2013, when Metrolinx is due to present its investment strategy.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Mitzie Hunter