More gas tax dollars for North Bay Transit

Nipissing MPP Monique Smith
News Release

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McGuinty government is investing an additional $1,195,138 in North Bay Transit in shared gas tax receipts to help get more people out of their cars and onto public transit, Nipissing MPP and Revenue Minister Monique Smith announced today. “The gas tax is paying off for North Bay because it provides long-term, stable funding, allowing North Bay Transit to plan significant improvements.”

In the first three years of gas tax funding, over $2.7 million has assisted the City of North Bay to help upgrade the bus fleet and build a new transit terminal on Oak Street.

“The distribution of the gas tax money has made a real difference for the citizens of North Bay,” Mayor Fedeli said. “The downtown Transit Terminal was something that was talked about for 20 years and the gas tax made it a reality,”

The McGuinty government’s gas tax funding program has increased ridership by 23 million passenger trips a year since 2004 by helping to expand and improve transit services in North Bay and in municipalities across Ontario. This is the equivalent of removing 19 million car trips from our roads.

In 2007/08 the Ontario government is providing $314 million in gas tax funding to 108 municipalities, which operate 86 transit systems across the province. Funding from the gas tax program is in addition to the governments other commitments to strengthen Ontario’s public transit, which include:

• MoveOntario 2020, a $17.5-billion public transit investment — the largest build of its kind in Canadian history. This 12-year plan will help replace 300 million car trips per year

• An additional $830 million provided for strategic transit projects in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area through the 2006 MoveOntario initiative. This investment will help ease congestion, improve air quality and create jobs across the province

• Greater Toronto Transportation Authority, operating as Metrolinx — created to develop a seamless and sustainable regional transportation system for residents and businesses within the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton

• The Presto card — an integrated fare collection system that will eventually enable commuters to travel on public transit from Durham to Hamilton using a single transit card

• The High Occupancy Vehicle Lane Network plan — a 25-year project to add HOV and commuter bus lanes to the 400-series highways and the Greater Golden Horseshoe that will ease congestion and offer faster, more reliable commute times to carpoolers and transit users and

• ReNew Ontario — the government’s infrastructure investment plan. In ReNew Ontario’s first five years, the government will have invested $11.4 billion in public transit, highways, borders and other transportation.

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