Skip to content

Transportation study must include passenger trains says lobby group

Between 2011 & 2014, there have been over 674 highway closures in the Northeast region of the province. Communities have witnessed nine motor coach route reductions or service eliminations within the previous year.
Passenger train shutterstock
File photo

A Multimodal Transportation Strategy for Northern Ontario must include passenger trains.

The Ministry of Transportation (MTO) & the Ministry of Northern Development & Mines (MNDM) are currently developing a Multimodal Transportation Strategy for Northern Ontario (NOMTS).

This initiative will define the improvements for the movement of people & goods over the next twenty five years, throughout the Cambrian Shield.

The Northern & Eastern Ontario Rail Network (NEORN) encourages every resident & stakeholder in Northern Ontario to provide comments & remarks regarding the importance and the need for frequent and reliable passenger trains & corresponding bus shuttle services in the region. The deadline to have input is July 15.

Northern Ontario is becoming more and more isolated.

This severely inhibits new inward investment and access to the burgeoning, global tourism opportunity.

Between 2011 & 2014, there have been over 674 highway closures in the Northeast region of the province. Communities have witnessed nine motor coach route reductions or service eliminations within the previous year. Connecting Northern Ontario with the rest of the province & the country is critical.

Your comments provided to the NOMTS will assist in demonstrating to the provincial and federal governments of the need for publicly supported investments in passenger rail. We encourage everyone to participate by providing their remarks at www.nomts.ca/contact-us.

“I don't want to see our trains in a museum, I want to see them on the track.‎I will work to restore passenger service in the north because northerners have as much right to properly-funded public transportation as urban dwellers." -- Charlie Angus, Member of Parliament for Timmins-James Bay