Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Mississauga to make big transit announcement

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be in Mississauga today (March 4) to make a significant announcement about public transit.

The Prime Minister’s itinerary shows only that he’ll be at a MiWay facility on Central Pkwy. W. at noon to make a transit announcement, but no further details were provided.

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However, one significant transit initiative high on Mississauga’s priority list is a plan to expand the Milton GO train line that would benefit tens of thousands of Mississauga residents and workers. 

That plan is also near the top of the priority list for Mississauga Centre MP and federal Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra, who’ll join Trudeau and Mayor Bonnie Crombie at today’s press conference. 

Ontario’s Minister for Seniors and Accessibility Raymond Cho will also be in attendance.

If the Milton GO train expansion plan is to move forward, the provincial and federal governments would jointly fund the undertaking, which would see the train line expand to all-day, two-way service.

Alghabra told insauga.com late last year that the project is crucial to him.

“That’s incredibly important to me. I want to make that a reality…and we’ll work with the Province (of Ontario) to get it done,” Alghabra said.

The longtime Mississauga Liberal, who has served as MP for the riding since 2015, reaffirmed earlier that Ottawa has agreed in principle to fund 50 per cent of the estimated $1-billion project, which was announced last August in Mississauga.  

However, details need to be ironed out with the Ontario government and Metrolinx, the agency that manages transportation in the Golden Horseshoe. 

The initiative would see expansion of the Milton line to a two-way, all-day service that will ease bottlenecks along the line. The train route runs from Union Station in Toronto to Milton, by way of a large section of Mississauga.  

Local politicians and others have been clamouring for years to have the route expanded.