Feds promise $28M in new Transit Windsor funding — but with a catch

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Ottawa has pledged to give Transit Windsor $28 million over the next decade, but it comes with a catch — Windsor city council must agree to less stringent rules around housing density.

Standing at the Tecumseh Mall transit terminal on Friday, MP Irek Kusmierczyk (L — Windsor-Tecumseh) announced his government would spend $2.8 million per year from 2026-2036 to help upgrade, replace, and modernize Windsor’s public transit infrastructure.

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The funding, which comes from the Canada Public Transit Fund, hinges on whether city council will relax certain residential zoning restrictions. Kusmierczyk said council must allow apartment buildings within 800 metres of high-frequency transit routes and post-secondary institutions to secure the new money.

“Strong, thriving, vibrant cities need strong public transit, but they also need affordable housing that working families, seniors, and young people can afford,” Kusmierczyk said. He noted that there are approximately 9,000 people on the waiting list for affordable housing in Windsor and Essex County.

“We want to not only invest in public transit, which we think is so important, but we’re also investing in housing.”

Ward 9 Coun. Kieran McKenzie, vice-chair of Transit Windsor’s board of directors, said the density requirement is largely consistent with the council-endorsed Housing Solutions Made for Windsor plan — a strategy to increase the city’s housing supply. He’s optimistic that council will agree “without much debate” to the zoning requirements necessary to leverage the new federal transit funding.

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“Our city, as we know, is a growing community,” McKenzie said. “In order to sustain that growth, our transit service needs to grow along with it. Of course, housing supply needs to be addressed as well through those processes.”

McKenzie suggested the funding could be used to purchase new hoists for bus maintenance, improve the Transit Windsor garage on North Service Road, install more shelters at bus stops, and more.

“This funding will be extremely helpful for us moving forward,” McKenzie said. Determining how to prioritize those funds may be a challenge, he said, but he described that as a “nice problem to have.”

The City of Windsor must present a capital plan to Ottawa explaining how it will spend the funding before it can sign an agreement.

Asked whether the capital funding could be used to resume the tunnel bus to Detroit that Mayor Drew Dilkens unilaterally axed at budget time as a cost-saving measure, McKenzie was doubtful.

“The issues surrounding the tunnel bus are mostly in the operational universe, so I’m not sure that the funding could actually make a difference,” he said.

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McKenzie reaffirmed his opposition to the tunnel bus’s demise, calling it “one of the worst decisions that I’ve seen our council make in my time on council.” He said he hopes there will be an opportunity to renew the service in the future.

“This program, as good as it is, I don’t think will help give us an opportunity to revisit that.”

Kusmiercyzk said he has been a firm supporter of the tunnel bus, adding that the federal Liberals have invested more than $100 million in Transit Windsor over the last five years.

The tunnel bus, which once broke even, costs the city $1.6 million a year because of changes to Canada’s Labour Code enacted in 2022 that granted federally regulated employees 10 days of paid medical leave per year on top of existing benefits. While only some Transit Windsor operators cross the border with the tunnel bus, all of the organization’s roughly 300 employees fell under federal labour laws.

The new federal money promised this week, of course, is subject to the current Liberal government surviving the next election, widely believed to be called as soon as next week after Justin Trudeau handed over the prime minister’s job to Mark Carney on Friday.

“Under this Liberal government, this money is guaranteed 100 per cent,” Kusmierczyk told reporters.

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