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Transit manufacturing jobs potential (con't)
Green Collar Jobs Coalition announced a couple of years ago, argue that unemployed workers can be put to work making components for wind turbines and solar panels. All well and good. But has anyone explored another area which could provide a major job payoff? That’s mass transit. Environmentalists, transportation activists and various politicians for years have talked about improving Canada’s transportation infrastructure. Projects include high-speed rail between Windsor and Quebec City and improved mass transit in urban areas. This could be anything from streetcars or so-called light rail to more extensive bus networks. Yet while politicians and development officials have been seeking jobs in the green energy sector, this other major source of job creation is being ignored. Not so in the United States. There the American Public Transportation Association has a jobs campaign advocating government funding to create as many as 450,000 jobs in manufacturing and maintenance of transit vehicles. In Canada there hasn’t been the same call for action, especially in manufacturing-depleted Ontario let alone Windsor and Essex County. This is a sector local and provincial politicians, and development officials, should be going after.
WindsorOntarioNews.com March 6 2010
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