The province wants Canada’s new federal Liberal government to join it in pushing private railways to make room for more passenger trains on the Milton and Kitchener GO lines.

Ontario Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca said it’s time to formalize discussions on rationalizing the Kitchener and Milton tracks, which are still owned in sections by CN and CP.

It shouldn’t take more than two hours to travel by rail between Toronto and Waterloo, he told a transit conference organized by the Toronto Region Board of Trade on Monday.

Without an agreement with the railways, the province won’t realize the potential of its plan to build high speed rail to connect the tech hub in Waterloo or provide the commuter benefits of its $13.5 billion GO electrified regional express rail program.

The municipalities along those corridors have already suggested ways of rerouting freight to free up the tracks for commuters.

One solution is called, the “Missing Link,” a new freight connection between the Milton line west of Trafalgar Rd. and the CN line at Bramalea, to travel along a track adjacent to Highway 407. It would leave the Milton tracks free for commuters and keep dangerous cargo away from more populated areas.

“I think there’s an opportunity there for us to really unlock those two corridors and perhaps do some other interesting things but I can’t force it. The province does not have jurisdiction over the rail companies so we need to work together to make it happen,” said Del Duca, who added that he would “like to believe” that a new federal Liberal government would be onside.

He said he’s spoken to new Liberal Transport Minister Marc Garneau and hopes they will meet soon.

“We need to be present nationally at these conversations. The jurisdictional challenges aren’t solved unless you’ve got a co-ordinated response at the federal level,” said Toronto MP Adam Vaughan.

“You can’t move transit more effectively through many cities without talking to the rail companies,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s a question of issuing edicts. I don’t think there isn’t common ground here. We’ve had governments who always look for the battleground and find a way to get stuff done . . . it’s about finding the common ground,” he said.

The province’s $15.5 million investment in Toronto area transit, including GO electrification, is the largest infrastructure investment in the province’s history, said Jan De Silva, CEO of the board of trade.

“We want to make sure this money is spent wisely and expediently,” she said.

Mayor John Tory told the business group that it’s time Toronto looks at public-private partnerships to build transit such as that being used by the province to build the Eglinton Crosstown LRT.

It needs to consider off-the-shelf solutions instead of the expensive, customized projects it typically delivers late and overbudget.

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“Look no further than the (Spadina) subway extension,” he told the business group.

What should be “a source of great excitement” is wildly overbudget by hundreds of millions of dollars, and years over deadline.

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