Councillors approve GrandLinq deal, shrug off lawsuit threat

CTV Kitchener: Another green light Regional councillors have moved ahead with GrandLinq's $593-million bit to operate LRT, despite a lawsuit threat. Marc Venema reports.

GrandLinq has been accepted as regional councillors’ preferred choice to design, build and operate the Ion light rail transit system – and as they debated that choice, the threat of a lawsuit and injunction to stop the project in its tracks was raised.

GrandLinq’s $593-million bid was selected by a Region of Waterloo working group as the preferred choice for option last week.

The issue came before council’s planning and works committee Tuesday, where – after hearing from multiple delegations and discussing the item for more than two hours – it was approved.

That decision must still be ratified by council.

But as the merits of GrandLinq and light rail in general were debated in downtown Kitchener, word came of an impending lawsuit against the region over the project.

Stop Light Rail, a group led by Waterloo business owner Jay Aissa, issued a press release saying they intended to seek an injunction to stop any work related to light rail transit from proceeding.

“They need to slow it down until the election. If they win the election, let them go ahead and build Ion the way they like it,” Aissa tells CTV News.

The press release claims light rail transit is not mentioned in the region’s Official Plan and therefore cannot be built – a charge regional chair Ken Seiling says is simply untrue.

“We don’t believe there’s any substance to the claim or suggestion,” he told regional councillors when the subject was raised.

“The region’s Official Plan was amended in 2007 to provide for this project, and we’re carrying on with that authority.”

Meanwhile, regional staff are moving ahead with preparations for construction.

While the exact construction scheduled remains unknown pending the completion of the deal with GrandLinq, pre-construction work is likely to begin not long after the deal is signed.

That work will include preliminary designs.

“You’ll also see some survey crews out along the corridor. They’ll be collecting information that they need for their design,” says Thomas Schmidt, the region’s transportation commissioner.

Utility work and other projects may begin by September, Schmidt says, with actual construction commencing in 2015.

“Their overall philosophy is (to) get in there as quickly as they can and get the work done as quickly as they can,” he says.

One of the biggest traffic impacts during construction will be when King Street is closed to facilitate LRT construction in the midtown area in Kitchener’s north end.

King will likely be closed for eight months.

“We definitely are looking at plans to minimize the impact on drivers by having good detour routes, by having that information available publicly,” says Schmidt.

The full 19-kilometre, 16-stop Ion system is expected to be up and running by September 2017.