Premier Christy Clark issued the following statement today regarding the recently signed federal-provincial bilateral funding agreement:

"Today, British Columbia has become the first province to sign an agreement under the federal government's Public Transit Infrastructure Fund, representing a significant commitment that the Province and our federal partners have made to invest in transit services in communities throughout the province.

"This achievement demonstrates the important relationship British Columbia has made with the federal government, as we move forward with improving access to transit, not only in the Lower Mainland, but also in B.C. Transit communities.

"The bilateral agreement provides Metro Vancouver and BC Transit with over $314 million in provincial dollars and $460 million in federal funding that will go toward transit-served communities in Vancouver and throughout the province. In Vancouver, we will invest this money into new Skytrain vehicles for the Expo, Millennium and Canada lines, a new SeaBus, a West Coast Express locomotive, upgrades to Skytrain stations and for design and planning for Rapid Transit South of the Fraser and the Millennium Line extension along Broadway.

"Outside of the Lower Mainland, we will build new maintenance yards and bus depots, invest in new, cleaner and more efficient buses and install new technologies that will make transit users and bus operators safer.

"Thanks to the great work done by Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Todd Stone, Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Peter Fassbender, and our federal and municipal partners, these dollars will have a direct impact on the everyday lives of transit users, helping to get them where they need to go in their communities. It will give people more opportunities to choose to get out of their vehicle and use a greener, more environmentally friendly mode of travel.

"This is also an important step as we work toward tackling affordability challenges in Metro Vancouver by building smarter, more accessible, more connected communities and encouraging more density along major transit routes."