Statement by Alison Currie

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing you to ask for your whole-hearted support for LRT in Hamilton. The opportunity to make a substantial change in how people move through the city of Hamilton is one that comes along very rarely. We’ve been offered funding from the provincial government to support this specific project, and to lose it would be to squander a once in a generation opportunity to initiate long-term positive change.
As you know, Hamilton has encountered many challenges over the years: practical, economic and social. As more people move into the city and as neighbourhoods regenerate, we return to the crucial question of how to help people move around the city. Like many others, I believe that LRT is the best way forward. Buses are yesterday’s technology; they struggle with weather, the ride isn’t smooth, and they aren’t built for optimal use of space; neither are they built to support the numbers and needs of parents with strollers and citizens who use walkers and wheelchairs. Most of all, buses don’t improve traffic flow because they ARE traffic. We need something that moves more people quickly, efficiently and smoothly.
In Hamilton we are part of a community of learning and innovation; that means we want and need transportation that is just as forward-looking as our universities and businesses. Building for the future is an investment. It will take time but we have to start soon - to continue to delay simply hinders the potential for development. We all recognize that construction will cause challenges, and I urge each and every one of you to be part of an inventive planning process that helps businesses find ways to function during construction. It won’t be easy, but Hamilton needs this to happen if we are to take our place among Ontario’s cities that are equipped for the future. We can’t afford to be left behind again.
I urge you to put aside partisan politics and support LRT as something that will benefit our entire city for decades to come. Even if some people currently decry LRT, their children and grandchildren will benefit from it. Like you, I recognize that there are other parts of Hamilton that need transportation support and infrastructure. We have the funding for LRT, let’s build it and then let’s continue on to improve other areas that need it.
This doesn’t have to be slated as a question of one part of the city versus another; this is about one significant step forward that will then enable us to take further steps in other directions. It will take time and patience and vision, and I believe that if we choose, we can start to make a difference NOW. If we choose not to, we can watch our city wallow in division and become a backwater, as other cities become destinations of choice. I do use public transportation and I can tell you that buses aren’t working. I have lived and worked in cities on three continents and I have seen the difference that a good transit system makes.
With transportation as with government, there is no perfect system. I am asking you to support the plans for LRT, a good plan to dramatically improve the city’s transportation requirements. I urge you to think of the future so that Hamilton can use this opportunity to become a more successful, more viable and more modern city. I urge you to choose vision over division.
And can I leave you with one last quotation?

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures. William Shakespeare, from Julius Caesar

Sincerely,

Alison Currie

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