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“I am more hopeful than I’ve ever been before,” says Andrew Knack.

What has the city councillor for Ward One feeling so sunny?

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It was the federal government’s fall fiscal update — which promised a new infusion of federal infrastructure dollars, specifically for public transit.

In total, the Trudeau government is now promising $25.3 billion for urban mass transit projects across Canada — which they’ve done by adding another $8 billion to the final two years of what is now a 12-year plan.

The fiscal update document specifically lists the west leg of Edmonton Valley Line LRT is a priority project that could get funding through this new program.

“In the past, maybe in my wildest dreams, I thought we could begin construction by 2023 or 2021,” says Knack.

Now, he says, it’s possible to imagine construction beginning within 18 to 24 months.

Guy Boston, the city’s new manager of LRT delivery, concurs. It’s not inconceivable, he says, that construction on the west leg could begin in 2019 — or even, if stars align, in 2018.