Huge transit funding announcement for BC today. Federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made a $540 million dollar announcement Thursday morning. The announcement follows Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's announcement of $19 billion to help provinces and territories with money during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wilkinson went onto say “The amount will be cost-matched by the Province of British Columbia.”
In the $19 billion federal restart package, a total of $1.8 billion has been put towards transit for Canada. Infrastructure and Communities Minister Catherine McKenna said last week “People need critical frontline services, including public transit, to get safely back to work and build back up our economy,” “Canada’s cities and towns provide those services. There’s no recovery without a municipal recovery. If our cities aren’t running, our economy isn’t running."
The funding of $540 million covers TransLink and BC Transit, right now it is not known whether the BC Ferries will also receive funding. The amount of money to be received by each is not known as well. Altogether, the provincial and federal governments are each providing $1 billion to BC municipal governments and public transit authorities.
Today’s announcement follows months of requests from Translink and provincial and municipal leadrers across the country for the federal government to provide emergency operating funding for public transit services during COVID-19.
The revenue loss has been immense for Translink and its forecasting total losses for 2020 and the coming year 2021 anywhere from $544 to $945 million or even into the billions.
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