Plan for Ashbridges TTC yard draws ire

[attach]1491[/attach]Leslieville residents have given the transit commission an earful over the plan to build a light rail storage facility and yard at the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant, saying the influx of streetcars will cause traffic and noise chaos just steps from their front doors.

A raucous meeting at the Toronto Fire training facility on April 8 was the latest public consultation on the commission’s light rail expansion project in the city’s east end.

Last year, the TTC selected the land at the southeast corner of Lakeshore Boulevard and Leslie Street as a their prime location to build a yard for new light rail, low-floor vehicles travelling daily to and from the proposed $345-million facility.

The current TTC carhouse on Connaught Avenue is too small to hold the increased flow of new vehicles that are double the length of the current 15-metre streetcars.

At the meeting, TTC officials presented several route options, but the preferred, most cost effective route to get the vehicles to and from the storage facility and Queen Street East is along Leslie Street.

“You’re asking that three-quarters of the city’s streetcars all converge at Leslie and Queen in the morning,” said one angry area resident. “That leaves 48 seconds for each streetcar to turn.”

The facility is expected to store 100 vehicles and provide fleet repair services to up to 20 vehicles at a time.

Others expressed concern that the streetcars will clog up an already congested road, where a grocery store and fast food restaurant are well-used. Another resident said having streetcars beginning their run at 5 am will cause sleep deprivation and other longterm health impacts.

But the TTC contends the new streetcar are designed to reduce noise and vibration.

Other routes the TTC has considered are Carlaw, Pape, Coxwell and Cherry Street via Commissioners Road, the latter of which was supported by several residents.

However, TTC officials said there are a few inherent problems with the Commissioners Road option, including the inability to build rail lines across a lift bridge located near the mouth of the Don River.

Bussin, who along with Fletcher and TTC Chair Adam Giambrone spoke briefly at the beginning of the meeting, said afterwards she
wants the TTC to bring alternate sites back to the table, including the former Toronto Film lands on Eastern Avenue.

“I think that the Ashbridges Bay site presented itself as one that would provide the 22 acre (requirement) so they were very anxious to get that,” she said. “Eastern requires amassing more than one property, but there’s a much bigger impact at Ashbridges Bay …”

The TTC also deemed it unsuitable when the film industry community expressed opposition after having recently won a battle to stop a proposed SmartCentre retail complex from being built there.

Days prior to the meeting, the newly formed Leslieville Residents Association staged a protest on Lakeshore Boulevard to voice their displeasure with what they say was a lack of public consultation about the storage facility.

Co-organizer and longtime Leslieville resident Nancy Hawley also questioned the legitimacy of the TTC lands being deeded to the treatment plant property to begin with.

Hawley says that building such a facility in effect breaches an agreement to clean up the property.

“If you take away 20 acres, it has an impact on the potential to improve the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant,” she said.

At the April 8 meeting, city officials said they were planning to meet with the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant Neighbourhood Liaison Committee this month to discuss the matter.