Metrolinx resumes buying land for Hamilton LRT after 7-month pause

After a seven-month pause, Metrolinx will start buying land again for Hamilton's planned light rail transit (LRT) system.

Mayor Fred Eisenberger met with Jeff Yurek, Ontario's minister of transportation, at city hall Thursday afternoon.

Yurek's message: Metrolinx will start buying property again, Eisenberger says. And the request for proposals for consortiums to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the system will be extended until September. It was due to close this month.

Eisenberger says he won't relax until shovels are in the ground. But this move is good news for the project.

"The premier made a commitment before Christmas that LRT is on the horizon for Hamilton, and they're coming through on that," he said.

This as a "a really significant milestone for this project," said Keanin Loomis, Hamilton Chamber of Commerce president. 

"The new government has now embraced this project. It's now theirs as much as it has been previous governments', or ours. They're embracing everything that's going to come too."

LRT has been a roller coaster ride since 2015, when the previous provincial Liberals committed $1 billion to build the system. It will run alternately down King and Main from McMaster University to Eastgate Square. It's due to launch in 2024.

The new provincial PC government paused property purchases for LRT in August. The city has waited for word ever since on when that would start again. That word came Thursday.

The joint office between Metrolinx and the city needs to buy 90 full properties to make LRT happen, Jacobson said. It's purchased 56 so far. Then there are as many as 400 partial property acquisitions to do. 

So far, all of them have been with willing sellers, Jacobson said. But there may be expropriations in the future.

"There's a big road ahead of us."