The minority Liberal government is taking steps to ensure it doesn’t get behind again on building public transit, schools, hospitals, bridges and roads.

Infrastructure Minister Glen Murray will introduce legislation Tuesday requiring the government to come up with a 10-year plan for building infrastructure.

His idea is to think smarter with co-ordinated planning that better integrates highways with public transit, for example, and to make sure funding for projects on the 10-year list is lined up.

“The reason the 401 is 18 or 20 lanes is because it was never planned as a transportation route, but as a highway route,” he told reporters before introducing the bill.

“The reason you can’t run transit from many GO stations is because the land use isn’t compatible with higher-order transit. So we’re going to change those things.”

Ontario needs an estimated $100 billion in new infrastructure, with about 60 per cent of roads, schools, etc., more than half a century old after years of governments tackling projects only on an as-needed basis.

Opposition parties said more advance planning is a good idea but NDP Leader Andrea Horwath suspects there is more talk than action in Murray’s legislation.

“They expect us to trust them that, somehow, this bill is going to be the answer to the infrastructure crisis?

“The government seems to be scrambling around to find anything to hang their hat on. But what they’re not looking at are the real challenges people are facing,” she added, citing the looming Heinz plant closure in Leamington and a major setback in developing the Ring of Fire.

Progressive Conservative transportation critic Frank Klees said Murray’s bill is “a lot of vision with no substance” and called on the government to ensure Ontario companies get a good piece of infrastructure contracts that often go to large international firms.

If passed with help from opposition parties, the Infrastructure for Jobs and Prosperity Act would mandate the first plan to be ready in three years and updated every five years thereafter, prioritizing efforts across the province.

It calls for the use of apprentices on some projects to boost the skilled trades, include public-private partnerships and promote “design excellence” by involving architects and other professionals with esthetic expertise when deemed appropriate.

With gridlock a major issue in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, the province is trying to catch up by building more subways and transit routes to ease congestion estimated to cost $6 billion a year in lost productivity.

Murray said the government, which could face an election as early as next spring, is on track to invest $35 billion in infrastructure across Ontario over the next three years — such as the Eglinton crosstown LRT line — on top of $85 billion since taking power in 2003.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

The legislation was promised in the government’s fall economic statement.

A major rainstorm last July, which flooded rail and subway lines and highways, caused sinkholes in roads and knocked down power lines, raised questions about the state of Ontario’s infrastructure and its ability to cope with dramatic swings in weather.