February 22, 2005

Infrastructure needs becoming critical

More than $88 billion needs to be invested in Canada’s transit and transportation infrastructure over the next 10 years, a report released last week by an Urban Transportation Task Force has determined.

“The need for investment in infrastructure in Canada, and particularly in Canadian cities, is widely accepted to be significant, critical and growing,” the task force says.

“It is apparent that in the jurisdictions with the largest cities the investment required is much larger than in jurisdictions with smaller cities.”

The report, entitled Urban Transportation in Canada Needs and Opportunities, was prepared for the Council of Deputy Ministers Responsible for Transportation and Highway Safety. As part of the report, the task force asked provinces, territories and municipalities about their 10-year needs for urban transportation.

The survey indicated that mass transit investment needs over the coming decade were estimated at nearly $23 billion while the investment need for roads, highways and bridges was estimated to be in excess of $66 billion.

The figure for mass transit includes investments necessary for system maintenance and renewal as well as system expansion for conventional transit infrastructure, fleet vehicles and technology. It does not include costs that would be incurred by municipalities establishing new transit systems where none currently exist or for specialized transit.

Furthermore, the total does not include transit needs in Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, the Northwest Territories or Nunavut, as those jurisdictions did not provide an estimate for the survey.

In Ontario, the task force found that the amount of investment needed in just the next four years to maintain, renew and expand transit infrastructure, rolling stock and technology will exceed $10 billion.

The task force report notes that a number of key studies have been done in an effort to quantify the country’s infrastructure deficit.

One of the studies, a report on the State of Municipal Infrastructure in Canada, estimated the cost to bring infrastructure to an acceptable level was nearly $44 billion.

The study was done in 1996 by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and McGill University.

It estimated the deficit in transit, roads, bridges, sidewalks and curbs represented 33 per cent of the total, or $14.4 billion.

Meanwhile, a Survey of Transit Infrastructure Needs determined that $21 billion would be required for transit infrastructure, including rolling stock, between 2004 and 2008. Of that total, just over $12 billion was reported as part of the transit systems’ current plans, and nearly $9 billion was identified as only possible with new, external sources of funding.

— Grant Cameron

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