Cambridge Mayor Doug Craig says he won’t stay quiet about light rail transit in Kitchener-Waterloo despite losing in his bid to learn how much it would cost to scrap the project.
Craig’s motion to that effect was defeated Wednesday night at a Waterloo Region council meeting, with only two other councillors voting in favour.
“I didn’t expect it to get passed, but we’ve opened the debate up,” he told CTV News after the vote.
“The debate’s got to continue. People need to realize that the LRT is costly, it is not what we need at this time in our evolution as a region, and it has completely left Cambridge out.”
Although the region’s rapid transit plan was passed by council in 2011, Craig only recently began speaking his mind on the project, following a court ruling in August that his son owning property near a Cambridge bus terminal did not place Craig in a conflict of interest on the subject.
Waterloo Mayor Brenda Halloran, who supported Craig’s motion, said she didn’t understand why councillors didn’t want information about cancellation costs to become public.
Other councillors argued that the intent of Craig’s motion was to get the ball rolling toward cancelling the project completely.
“It’s kind like saying to your spouse after six years ‘I don’t want to raise any concerns, but if we were to separate, would I get the house?’” said Woolwich Mayor Todd Cowan.
“It’s not just the information, it’s the intent behind it.”
Harald Drewitz, a self-identified taxpayer watchdog, says the region should have accepted Craig’s suggestion.
“An issue that is of this size in this region, the councillors and bureaucrats should understand people need complete and utter transparency,” he says.
Rapid bus transit will start running in Cambridge in 2014, with light rail trains rolling through Kitchener and Waterloo in 2017.
Craig said he expects rapid transit to be an issue in the 2014 municipal election.
