Cambridge LRT expansion in question as regional staff weigh options to add more buses instead

Staff at the Region of Waterloo are considering options that would add more busses in Cambridge instead of extending the light rail transit (LRT) line through the city’s downtown core, something that raised concerns around the horseshoe at a committee meeting on Tuesday.

At the end of this year, regional councillors will decide the steps they prefer to take when it comes to connecting Cambridge to the Central Transit Corridor (CTC). Those options will include the costly ION expansion, an implementation of Bus Rapid Transit to connect commuters to the Fairway Station in Kitchener, or a “status quo” option which would mean no expansion at all.

The success of the ION line running through Waterloo and Kitchener was being discussed at a Sustainability, Infrastructure, and Development Committee when regional councillors learned of the possibilities being explored in LRT Phase 2.

“I’m surprised that we’re back to, it seems to me, square one,” said councillor Pam Wolf at the committee meeting on Tuesday.

Councillors preferred options that included building the permeant LRT line through Cambridge.

“I am a fan of rails in the cement because then people know that there is a certainty that that route of the ION and the LRT won’t change,” said regional chair Karen Redman.

If council decides to move forward with the LRT expansion into Cambridge, construction is still a long way off. In an interview on The Mike Farwell Show in June 2024, Manager of Rapid Transit Coordination Matthew O’Neil said he expects construction to begin in 2032.

Early estimates of the costs of building the eight-stop LRT line to downtown Cambridge are expensive and growing. In a report to council in 2023, the price tag of the expansion was just under $4.5 billion, a number that had nearly tripled since estimates from 2021.

According to Councillor Rob Deutschmann, the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce estimates that an ION expansion through Cambridge could attract $5 to 10 billion in private investments along the CTC.

The impacts of the CTC in Waterloo and Kitchener have been positive. In 2023, $429 Million in new building permits were issued within the CTC, and a growing percentage of the region’s population is moving to locations within a 10-minute walk of an LRT stop.

A public input session will be held in May to give residents a chance to express their opinions about the state and future of the transit corridor.