Thank you very much for that kind
introduction and thank you FCM for
awarding the region's
project a Sustainable Community uh
Award.
It's really an honor and a privilege to
to get that
award and it really shows how
important and critical this project
has been.
I'm going to be a bit unusual in my
presentation
and actually start it off with with
the video.
I think it's self-explanatory that this
video and I will
pick my presentation up again after it.
Is done so just one second
[Music]
People wonder what's in the water here?
flip back through the pages and
paragraphs of this community's history
and you can see why that's a question
asked with a straight face
and a notebook in hand.
This place it's got a gift
for appearing beyond the horizon for
resilience in the face of adversity.
Over the past century and a half it's
attracted farmers,
crafts people, industrialists, academics,
and tech startups to its streets and
fields.
And it's rolled with the punches.
It's dusted itself off following the
decline of manufacturing
and the automotive nose dive. It's
redefined its image
marrying new ideas with all buildings
breathing life into abandoned spaces.
[Music]
Recently, like others, Waterloo region
began to push its urban limits towards
the countryside.
Sprawling across the rich fields that
give us food,
groundwater and a special connection to
a rural landscape.
But unlike many others, it sat up
and took notice that unique way of life
was slowly eroding
in a community of three robust cities
and four pastoral townships.
Maintaining a rural urban balance is no
easy feat,
but that's the tightrope this community
walks every day.
Waterloo region had a decision to make.
Allow the urban limits to push
further into its farmland or contain
that growth
in the downtown cores.
[Music]
It would be a hard decision that would
shape the community for generations to
come
and establish these past few years as a
historic period
in the ongoing story of Waterloo region
region.
[Music]
So that video was
the trailer and it was produced
entirely by Region of Waterloo
staff as an introduction to a one-hour
a video that we did to document the
whole ION story.
And I wanted to use that to introduce
this talk
because it really speaks to a lot of why
we did this, provide some great in
visual images that really demonstrate
what this project has done
for the region. One of the the things
that is noted in it
is the region of waterloo and what we
consist of so we have a population of
about
600 000 for a project like this,
that's on the small side. We are the
smallest community in North America
that has built a light rail transit
system. In europe, there are some
our size but in North America by far the
smallest.
We are a relatively young community. I do
more than my fair share to pull that
average up
a little bit. But we definitely have a
young community,
a growing community. That growth has been
happening
for over the last 30 years. Every year
we've been. We've been growing.
At times, we've been close to the fastest
growing community
in all of Canada.
So that gives a bit of background on
what the region
is. The project itself
it consists of 14 bombardier vehicles.
A cost of about 100 million dollars.
For those vehicles the
capital cost of the line which is on the
order of 30 kilometers in length
is about another 900 million for total
project cost of close to billion
dollars and it stretches from the the
north end of Waterloo
to the south end of Kitchener.
Connecting two malls and along
the route.
We have the University of Waterloo,
Wilfred Laurier,
our hospitals, two downtown core areas,
as well as a lot of opportunities for
redevelopment.
The construction of this project started
in in 2014
and we were able to launch service in
june of 2019.
At the same time we also launched ION
bus service that goes from the
south end of the Light Rail System all
the way
to the complete south end of of
Cambridge.
That system was installed in order to
prepare us for stage two. Stage two being
the continuation of that Light Rail,
all the way from Fairway into Cambridge
and connecting all of the major cities
within,
within the Region of Waterloo.
As an engineer I'll admit I like the
the technical part of this. The tracks,
the trains, all the things that we do to
create transportation
choice and that infrastructure piece.
But, if I'm honest, that's not the big
reason why we did this.
The big reason we did this was to
shape our community. Shape how we
grow.
To create vibrant urban spaces
and to protect our rural
areas. You can see in the picture on the
side there are
many places along the corridor between
urban and rural.
Where you have that very distinct line
in the Region of Waterloo.
Not all communities have that but we can
document
exactly where that divide between urban
and rural is and have been able to
maintain that for
overB30 years. It's really critical to
us because we believe we have some of
the best
farmland in Canada. Critical to
protect that
as well. Most of our drinking water comes
from the groundwater that
infiltrates in those areas.
This project, after many many years of
planning and construction
started on June 21st. The first day of
summer or last day of spring in 2019.
In the first 11 days we had 330 000
boardings. That was free service
for those first 11 days
but the successes continued through 2019.
We saw over 3 million boardings on
ION for just the first two months to
service
and having a system like this creates a
bit of a halo effect.
Not only do you see increases in
boardings on
the light rail system the ION system
itself, but you see boardings increase
across your whole,
your whole, transit system and we saw 12
percent increase
and in the central corridor which is
which is serviced by ION.
We saw a 35 increase which are really
stout
robust numbers to after a launch of a
system like this.
As I said we didn't just do this to
build the rail and to carry the
the passengers. We also built it for the
changes that would
bring in our downtown corridors. I'm not
going to read the numbers you can read
the numbers in here.
But I can relate this story my office
looks out over the city
and if I count the number of cranes
that are out there I see 15 cranes
almost all the time.
For a while I think we were the third
leading city in North America for a
number of cranes.
I just outside a block away from my
office there is a 32-storey
condo that's going up that will be the
largest condo.
Tallest building that has been
constructed in
the Region of Waterloo and it's not just
about
that. Investment that's happening that
investment is great it brings in tax
dollars
but it's the vitality that's being
created. We're getting people living
in our downtown core areas. We're
creating those vibrant urban
spaces that will attract more people
into the areas and businesses. We're
seeing business like google
making a big commitment to our downtown
and wanting to be
in those vibrant areas.
Now that this has been a
transformational
project and there's a number of factors
that have helped us be
successful, one of the big ones and maybe
most important one,
is political, and staff continuity, and
leadership. These projects don't happen
overnight they're not
even a three or four year project these
are 10 and 15 year projects.
And if you cannot maintain that
commitment on a political side or on the
staff side it's impossible
to be successful. In our case, we went
through at least two municipal
elections
that were fought on the basis of whether
we should go ahead with Light Rail
Transit or not.
Fortunately, the people supporting Light
Rail Transit won,
and we were able to maintain that
continuity and
get this project to completion. The
picture on the side that you see
are all the successful council members
celebrating on the day of the opening.
The other big piece of this is having a
strong implementation team
and that's both on the staff side you
need strong people to
to lead this but you also need to make
sure you get
a good consulting team together. That's
both technical consultants,
legal financial, if you're doing a public
private partnership you need experts in
in those types of procurement methods
as well. The people that you will be
building this with the other partners on
your team,
they will have a world-class team you
need to make sure
that you have a world-class team to be
successful.
Well there's a strong community, we had a
good community vision of where we wanted
to be,
and we had a lot of community support.
But I will say you may have seen during
the video
that we had probably about a third of
people that supported this.
30 people that were neutral and about
a third of people that that didn't
really see why we're doing it.
And we had many, many a community
outreach
opportunities. Many of them I was
present
and frequently if there were customers
and citizens who had a lot of
questions they were directed to me. I
remember one meeting
where we had three older women who could
not see the point
of light rail transit. They did not see
why it was necessary.
They did not see any reason for us to
change the way
that we grew and I will admit I spent
probably a half hour to an hour with
them.
one occasion went up one side and down
the other side of me
at the end of it I will admit I did not
convince them to change their minds. I
did not run into those
those particular women again but on
opening day
we had a lot of people like them. They
came out on that opening day because
they said you know what we paid for this
damn thing we want to see what it's all
about. They were not, they were not
expecting
to be satisfied with what we had
constructed or see it
but many of the people that came off the
train after having that first ride
had completely changed their minds. They
had
gotten the ride to the community. They
could see the differences that that it
would bring into the future
and many came off that train seeing
exactly that we didn't understand this
before
but now we understand how this is going
to change our transportation choice.
How this is going to change our
community and we're now supportive of it
and I think, I think, that was an
absolutely,
a great thing for me to hear gratifying
to see.
That we were able to change some of the
people's minds at least
and gratifying to see that this would
change
our community.
Going to end by thanking you my name
is Thomas Schmidt
this project was a
transformational
one for the Region of Waterloo and it's
one that you rarely get an opportunity
to do in your career.
and I would encourage all of you,
when you go to work in your
municipalities,
look for those types of transformational
projects. They are not easy,
they are hard sometimes, they take a long
time
to get done sometimes, the reward isn't
until
the end of the project, but they are well
worth doing.
It is why I come into the office every
day and I know it's why many of you go
into the office every day.
So, thank you very much for listening to
me. Thank you again
FCM for awarding us the Sustainable
Communities
Award and I'm open to answer any
questions