The federal government has announced a $55-million, three year subsidy and grant program to make rail crossings, rail properties and rail lines safer - and it wants proposals from you.
Federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau said the program would fund infrastructure, technology and research projects - anything from pedestrian overpasses and more gates, lights and bells at grade crossings to intelligent transport systems, new detection technology and communications protocol.
"If we identify a problem ourself amongst the 20,000 grade crossings in the country, we will certainly address that but at this point we want to hear from the people who cross the railways on a daily basis, the communities where there are, in the center of town, grade crossings. We want to hear from people because 23,000 grade crossings is a lot of grade crossings - we want to hear from people who say, 'Well, look, we have a particular concern about this particular grade crossing,' " said Garneau at a news conference in Montreal.
"If there have been accidents or near accidents at these, obviously that is something we'll be looking at more closely."
Garneau said up to $52M will be set aside for projects while $3.4M will be devoted to education and awareness programs.