It’s full steam ahead for the East Toba and Montrose run of river project.

Plutonic Power and investment partner GE Energy Financial Services announced Monday that its run-of-river hydroelectric facilities at East Toba River and Montrose Creek are complete. The Vancouver-based company has started full-scale power delivery to BC Hydro.

The Vancouver Sun reports that the new  facilities are effectively the largest source of privately generated renewable power in B.C.

The project earned the #30 spot on our 2010 ranking of top infrastructure projects. To find out more about the project and its key players, click here.

Waterloo’s new transit system has pushed the city into 2nd place on a list of the best places to invest in Canada.

The Real Estate Investment Network (REIN) recently published a report that analyzes real estate prospects in Canada and ranks the 11 best cities for investment opportunities. Coming in behind front-runner Calgary, the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge region’s ranking was bolstered by job growth, student growth and the new light rapid-transit system.

The new transit system, made up of buses and light rail, is estimated to cost $790-million.

The Record reports on REIN’s depiction of the region as the “economic Alberta of Ontario”:

That means Waterloo Region is seen not only as the economic engine of the new Ontario economy, but also that it “will outperform all other major regions in eastern Canada,” says REIN president Don Campbell.

Apart from the new transit system, Waterloo has a number of large-scale projects that could make this year’s Top 100. The Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre at the University of Waterloo and the Waterloo Region consolidated courthouse are both being considered for spots on the list.

According to REIN, the hot-spots for real state investment in the upcoming decade are:

The Windsor-Detroit crossing will make the Top 100 list in 2011 for the fourth year running. Is there light at the end of the “jobs tunnel?”

On June 17, the Windsor Port Authority teamed up with CP Railway and Borealis, and the Detroit River Tunnel Project was re-christened the Continental Gateway. Earlier in the month, the coalition filed the project description to Transport Canada as the first formal document submitted under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are also involved.

So it seems that the Detroit River rail tunnel, re-imagined and refitted a number of times, is moving towards yet another incarnation.

Built in 1909, the tunnel can’t accommodate newer, bigger containers: the double-stacked, nine-foot, six-inch containers and some of the new multilevel rail cars used by many shippers and car-makers. The tunnel was widened in 1994, but can’t be expanded any further to fit the larger containers.

To ship tall containers, CP Railway must pay to use CN Rail’s line between Sarnia, Ontario and Port Huron, Michigan, roughly 110 miles away from the Windsor-Detroit border.

Below the river, the current tunnel carries 350,000 cars and $21.5 billion in U.S-Canada trade a year. But the tunnel’s size has put the brake on greater economic expansion in the region.

“A larger replacement rail tunnel is critical to creating jobs and turning Windsor-Detroit into one of the most significant logistics hubs in the Midwest,” said Windsor Port Authority President and CEO David Cree in a news release.

The website for this project (thejobstunnel.com) is currently, like the project itself, in limbo.

A public-private partnership (P3) between the Windsor Port Authority, Canadian Pacific Railway and Borealis Infrastructure Management, is pushing forward a $400-million plan to build a new, high-clearance rail link near the existing tunnel.

After assessment approval from both Canadian and US governments and two to three years of construction, the Continental Gateway expects the tunnel to be built by 2015. Backers say the project will create 2,200 jobs in the area.

But the new tunnel has been on the minds of CP Railway employees and Ontario and Michigan politicians for nearly a decade.

An older embodiment of the Continental Gateway, the Detroit River Tunnel Company, had a different plan.

In 2001, the company wanted to build a new rail tunnel, and turn the existing link into a route across the river for trucks only.

Optimistically dubbed the “Jobs Tunnel” and endorsed by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the project never saw light. The Detroit River Tunnel Project faced community opposition from people living both ends of the tunnel, worried about an increase in trucks on their streets.

The truck tunnel went further off track once plans were underway to build a new bridge between Windsor and Detroit.

With the new Continental Gateway slowly chugging towards reality, some wonder what will happen to the old rail link. The Windsor Star reported that observers believe the old tunnel will be used for high-speed rail passenger network or shipping surplus freight.

While the new freight tunnel is being touted as a green alternative to truck transport, other projects for the border between Windsor and Detroit show how much car is still king of the region.

This April, The City of Windsor and the Ontario government completed negotiations for properties required for the construction of the Windsor-Essex Parkway. And in May, the Michigan House approved a plan to build a new bridge across the border, the Detroit International Crossing.