It’s downtown transit for a different kind of urban core. But a provincial pledge to fund the $1.6-billion Hurontario-Main LRT will transform the landscape and the prospects of Mississauga and Brampton, the cities’ mayors have promised.

By 2022, the 23-kilometre, 26-stop light rail line will be the connective tissue linking Mississauga’s lakefront to Brampton’s historic downtown, Ontario Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca announced Tuesday at the Mississauga transit terminal.

It is a game changer on a civic scale similar to Mississauga’s undulating twin Marilyn Monroe towers, which have stamped a unique identity on the city’s emerging skyline, said Mayor Bonnie Crombie.

“It’s really a coming of age for our city, allowing us to start the next chapter of our story,” she said, adding praise for her predecessor Hazel McCallion, who pushed for the LRT.

It was Mississauga’s turn, said McCallion, who came out of retirement to attend the announcement. “We have been co-operating with (provincial transportation agency) Metrolinx all along, and they have done projects in other cities at a full cost,” she told reporters.

Mississauga has spent $15.4 million for planning studies, environmental assessment and preliminary design for the LRT, and it has allocated $25 million toward land acquisition along the route in its 10-year capital plan. But property taxes won’t raise enough for the city to contribute more, said Crombie. It will, however, have to pay to operate the LRT once it opens. Mississauga subsidizes 48 per cent of the cost of its existing bus system.

“We know where you build transit, economic development flourishes,” said Brampton Mayor Linda Jeffrey, who said she will take a strong business case to her council to compel them to approve an LRT route through the city’s historic downtown. “Those jobs mean everything. They are part of the future of Brampton,” she said.

Del Duca dismissed suggestions that almost all the $16 billion the Ontario Liberals have earmarked for regional transit in the coming decade is being spent outside Toronto. Last week Premier Kathleen Wynne pledged $13.5 billion toward GO’s regional express rail expansion.

“If we’re going to build a network, if it’s going to be integrated and if it’s going to work for the people and the businesses and the economy of this entire region, we have to worry less about municipal boundaries and we have to worry more about what’s important to the people of the region,” he said.

Among the projects on Toronto’s list of transit priorities is the downtown relief subway. But that project isn’t at the same state of readiness as the Hurontario LRT, said Metrolinx CEO Bruce McCuaig. The route, stations and connections to the rest of the transit system haven’t been defined.

“So there’s still a lot of planning to be done on the relief line before we can make a formal and detailed commitment to the delivery of that project,” he said.

Finance Minister Charles Sousa, who attended Tuesday’s press conference, hinted that Thursday’s provincial budget could reignite the topic of new revenue tools to fund other projects. It’s also still unclear which projects might qualify for federal funding, he said.

The Hurontario LRT will serve a different market than GO, said McCuaig.

“It really serves the people who live and work in Mississauga, in Brampton, who are accessing the jobs that are different than the jobs in downtown Toronto. They’re jobs in the service industry. Right now they don’t have the same kind of travel options that you get in downtown Toronto. Those people have to rely on the bus, even with all the density up and down the Hurontario main corridor. This is about building more choices in a really important direction here,” he stressed.

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The LRT will begin construction in 2018, following more detailed design, property procurement and utility relocation work.

It is forecast to carry 33 million people a year by 2031. That compares with 66 million a year on the entire GO system now. The TTC’s 11 streetcar routes carry about 65 million riders annually.

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