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It’s the final piece to complete four additions to the city’s transit network that has seen new BRT stations crop up in all four quadrants of the city.

Some opponents said there wasn’t enough ridership to justify the project. Keating said that may be true for certain portions of the line, but the project is about the bigger picture.

“It may not be used in segments of the line, but it will certainly be used from start to termination and that is the thing — it’s the service along the whole line that is crucial, not one or two small segments of the line,” said Keating.

“We have to continually strive to get better public transit, simply for the sake of the city itself. You can’t continually build roads, you need to give people the opportunity to get off of them.”

Meanwhile, councillors Diane Colley-Urquhart and Jeromy Farkas, who campaigned to cancel the project but were ultimately outvoted, remain critical of the project but are focusing on the silver lining.

Colley-Urquhart said the project has improved existing infrastructure in the southwest, such as improvements to Anderson Road’s connection with the ring road and existing transit stations, but her worries are related to its operating budget.

“The proof is going to be in the pudding,” said Colley-Urquhart.

“I’m not saying now that we have invested all this money into capital infrastructure that we not use it at all, but with the state of the economy and the low ridership that is anticipated well into the next five to 10 years, I just don’t think we need the same operational costs that we determined many years ago.”