{"id":619614,"date":"2026-04-21T21:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/619614\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T21:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:14:08","slug":"ottawa-province-sign-agreement-to-upload-lrt-and-hwy-174-to-ontario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/619614\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa, province sign agreement to upload LRT and Hwy. 174 to Ontario"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s no timeline yet, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said at a press conference on Tuesday, but the Government of Ontario did reconfirm its commitments to take on the responsibility of Ottawa\u2019s light rail transit system<\/a> and Highway 174.<\/p>\n

What started as a campaign promise in February 2025 by Doug Ford<\/a> is slowly coming into focus for the residents of Ottawa as the municipality and the Ontario government signed an agreement to \u201cadvance the upload\u201d of infamous Line 1 and the east end highway. <\/p>\n

Sutcliffe told reporters he was excited about the \u201cmilestone\u201d<\/a> coming to fruition a day after Premier Ford confirmed his commitment in a question-and-answer period. The mayor met with Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria to sign the agreement on April 21. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a giant step forward in that process to sign a deal with the provincial minister that reaffirms the commitment to complete the upload, and that outlines a little bit of the framework for how that\u2019s going to work from here,\u201d Ottawa\u2019s mayor said. \u201cIt\u2019s about huge financial impact of billions and billions of dollars on our city, the ability to reinvest in public transit, and build a better transit service going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the mayor was scarce on details, he did say that the agreement outlines clear collaboration between the two levels of government on the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a very, very complicated transaction,\u201d Sutcliffe said. \u201cWhat\u2019s going to be included, what\u2019s not going to be included. There are a lot of different pieces to it and a lot of work that has to be done. So, this is the next big milestone to reaffirm the commitment and to establish the framework for how the work is going to get done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sutcliffe could not offer any timelines for the process but did note that the province made the commitment to upload Highway 174 before the LRT and that agreement is still being worked out. <\/p>\n

\u201c(It) doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re not going to happen it just takes time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In March 2024, the province and the municipality reached a $543 million deal<\/a> that included a phased plan to upload the 174. Sutcliffe said that the two parties are \u201ca lot closer to the finish line\u201d on the highway because the process was started earlier.<\/p>\n

The city council has been very vocal about how \u201cunfair\u201d the province treats Ottawa compared to other cities <\/a>regarding its transit. The municipality\u2019s geography does not pay any favours to the struggling system. The agreement would place the LRT under Metrolinx, the transportation arm of the Ontario government. It would bring Ottawa in line with cities like Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton and Brampton.<\/p>\n

Recently, Metrolinx sent Ottawa new axles to help fix the dozens of LRT vehicles<\/a> still out of service from an issue found in January. This reignited talks about the province\u2019s promise to alleviate the burden of the LRT from the City of Ottawa.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tOttawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe with Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria. The pair signed a deal to move the upload of the LRT forward. (Mark Sutcliffe\/ X) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s no timeline yet, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said at a press conference on Tuesday, but the Government of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":{"0":"post-619614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ottawa","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-ottawa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}