Ontario’s Premier Kathleen Wynne announced that the province is moving ahead with preliminary design work on the Toronto-Windsor high speed rail and investing CAD 15 million (USD 10 million) in a comprehensive environmental assessment. Ontario will establish a new governing body to oversee the work required to design and implement high speed rail.
This fall will be issued a request for bids for the design required to support the Environmental Assessment for the full length of the Toronto-Windsor rail corridor. The proposed stops on the new HSR line include Windsor, Chatham, London, Kitchener-Waterloo, Guelph and Toronto, with a connection to Pearson International Airport. The line could cut travel times between Toronto and Windsor from 4 hours to just over 2.
“Building high speed rail along the Toronto-Windsor corridor isn’t just a game changer for Southwestern Ontario — it’s going to deliver benefits all along the line. Seven million people live along the Toronto-Windsor transport corridor. High speed rail will get them where they need to be faster,” the Premier of Ontario said.
The announcement of the project comes as the province releases a new report by David Collenette, Ontario’s Special Advisor on high speed rail. In 2015, Collenette was asked to assess the project’s feasibility. After extensive consultations, his report has concluded that there is a business case for high speed rail along the Toronto-Windsor corridor and that there are opportunities to engage the private sector in financing and delivering the project.
“Bringing high-speed rail to Ontario remains a steadfast commitment of our government, as we continue to build the modern transportation infrastructure our province needs to keep moving forward,” Minister of Transport said.
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