Update on Metrolinx Transit Expansion Projects

Mayor and Members
Toronto Executive Committee
via email to: Cathrine Regan
Committee Secretary
exc@toronto.ca


RE: EX25.5 Update on Metrolinx Transit Expansion Projects - Second Quarter 2021


Dear Mayor Tory and Member of Executive Committee:


Staff tell you on page 15 of their report that they support the Durham Scarborough BRT.


We are writing to tell you the people of Highland Creek do not support it.


I am writing to you as President of the Highland Creek Community Association. Our Executives asked Mr. Douglas Phillips to study and understand what this project is all about.
Mr. Phillips and his team of volunteers have been working on this since September 2019. They have attended several meetings, read reports, written letters, and tried to work with Metrolinx and get answers from them. Studies have been promised, but nothing completed yet.
Highland Creek is a residential community, with only two small plazas, no high-rises, and no commercial businesses. It has many mature and beautiful trees, and its properties are well maintained.
The team’s conclusion: Metrolinx, aided and abetted by your staff, are bound and determined to push their busway 2.7 kilometers straight down the middle of Ellesmere Road, with raised concrete curbing on both sides, all the way through the Highland Creek Community from Military Trail to Kingston Road, dividing our community in two. This is a dangerous and extremely costly project. It is totally unacceptable. It is not needed and unnecessary.
The Highland Creek CA Executive joined Mr. Phillips and his team’s conclusion: this project must be stopped. The Community put together a door-to-door campaign and contacted every household in Highland Creek asking residents for their comments.
The Community unanimously said: ‘STOP THE DSBRT BUSWAY’.

The 550 ‘Yellow Pins’ on this air photo are households all across Highland Creek who took the time to fill in and return a ballot to us stating their opposition to the Busway.

Over 300 Highland Creek Residents asked for and have put out a lawn sign or banner to voice their opposition.

NO BRT ON ELLESMERE

Over 1,300 people have signed our on-line Petition.

Mayor and Members: The people who live in Highland Creek do not want your Busway.

They do not want ‘No Left-Hand Turns’ from their homes, their library, their community park, and their local side streets which would all be cut off permanently by the concrete barrier. This plan would highly impede emergency vehicles.

The busway your staff supports brings absolutely zero benefits to the people of Highland Creek:

We have been told that even after you build the busway, the TTC’s York Mills bus will continue to run in the curb lane. We will get to watch Durham buses run down the middle of Ellesmere Road taking

University students to class...MAYBE saving them 60-90 seconds in their daily commute from Oshawa, Whitby, Ajax, and Pickering for the two or three years they go to classes.

Mayor and Members:

The Community supports the U of T Scarborough Campus.

There are already several GO/TTC bus services direct to the U of T campus.

Nobody in the right mind will take this proposed BRT from Oshawa through 40 stops to the U of T!

Metrolinx already operates buses from Durham Region along Hwy. 401 to Scarborough Centre and beyond to the Finch Subway Station. Add one more stop at the U of T: use Morningside, problem solved!

• Zero cost.

• Zero trees cut down.

• Zero private property expropriations.

• Zero driveways cut off.

• Zero public streets cut off.

• No library or park cut off.

• AND Durham residents could get service right to the front doors of the Pan-Am Centre much easier/faster/safer than what Metrolinx and your staff support.

Mayor and Members: The message from the people of Highland Creek could not be clearer:

NO BUSWAY THROUGH HIGHLAND CREEK.

Yours truly,


David Anderson, President 

Douglas Phillips, Chair

DSBRT Committee
Highland Creek Community Association 

cc:

Gary Anandasangaree MP – Scarborough-Rouge Park gary.anand@parl.gc.ca

Vijay Thanigasalam MPP – Scarborough -Rouge Park vijay.thanigsalam@pc.ola.org

Mike Adler – Scarborough Mirror madler@toronto.com

Transportation in Scarborough

Letter to Councillors Thompson, Crawford, Mantas, Lai, McKelvie and Ainslie 

February 21, 2021

via email to: 

councillor_thompson@toronto.ca 

councillor_crawford@toronto.ca 

Councillor_Mantas@toronto.ca 

councillor_lai@toronto.ca 

councillor_mckelvie@toronto.ca 

councillor_ainslie@toronto.ca 

 RE: DO WE HAVE A TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT 

AND IF SO, WHAT ARE THEY DOING FOR US? 

Dear Councillors for Scarborough: 

There are four huge infrastructure projects all slated to happen in Scarborough at once. 

• Eight grade separations, bridges over or tunnels under the Lakeshore and Stouffville GO tracks; 
• Nine complete major arterial road intersection rebuilds along Ellesmere between McCowan and Military Trail; 
• Four massive ‘cut and cover’ excavations for the Scarborough Subway Extension. 

Each one will involve complete road closures, partial road closures, lane restrictions, detours, diversions, bus service delays-rerouting and huge volumes of heavy truck traffic. Most of them will take several years to complete. 

The road-rail grade separations and the subway extension are good for Scarborough, no question about it. Not so sure about the Ellesmere Busway. 

BUT: each will have dramatic impacts on how Scarborough people and businesses get around this city while these are under construction.

The Stouffville GO Expansion Project: 

Metrolinx is double tacking the Stouffville GO tracks through Scarborough so they can operate all day/two-way/frequent train service. Bridges over or tunnels under are proposed to remove level crossings at Passmore, McNicoll, Huntingwood, Progress and Danforth Road. But nor Finch. 

The Lakeshore East GO Rail Expansion Project:

Metrolinx is expanding service on the Lakeshore East GO line. Roads that now cross the tracks at level crossing cannot continue to operate with the proposed frequency of trains and electrification. Scarborough Golf Club Road, Galloway and Morningside are all proposed to be grade-separated. 

The Scarborough Subway Extension Project:

Metrolinx is building the Scarborough Subway Expansion project from Kennedy to Sheppard-McCowan using ‘cut and cover’ to build stations and ‘special track’ works. 

The Ellesmere Busway for Durham/TTC/Go Buses. 

Metrolinx plans to widen the paved surface of Ellesmere dramatically from Grangeway to Military Tail to accommodate a centre lane busway. Every signalized intersection will be exploded into a miasma of lanes, loading platforms, bike lanes and U-turns introduced. 

You have probably seen plans for each of these projects in various reports. It really gets scary when you put them all together on an air photo of Scarborough. 

The eight grade separations and especially the four huge ‘cut and cover’ excavations will take years to complete. Who knows how long it will take to widen-rebuild the 9 Ellesmere intersections? 

Cost over-runs, unforeseen construction issues, disputes with contractors, workplace safety issues etc. have been known to lengthen projects like these by years. [Viz. Union Station, the Vaughan Subway and on a smaller scale the water reservoir on Ellesmere east of Nielson.] 

When we finally emerge from the COVID emergency our people and businesses are going to run right into these massive interruptions of our road system whether we ride a bus or drive a private vehicle to work, school, the grocery store, music lessons, soccer practice etc. 

Often overlooked when our experts think about reducing the capacity of our road system are two very important user groups: 

• The bus fleets operated by the Public and Separate School Boards in this city transports over 45,000 students each and every day primarily for students as young as 4 years old, right up to high school students. The great majority are in ‘suburban’ locations like Scarborough; 
• Wheel-Trans provides 4.2 million trips a year to its 42,000 customers across this city. 

Six of the twenty busiest bus routes in the entire city are located in Scarborough. The Lawrence bus alone carried way over 30,000 people a day in 2014. 

Every one of these travellers and a huge portion of our businesses will be delayed by road closures, lane restrictions, detours and heavy construction truck traffic. 

Somewhere in the midst of all these disruptions, our SRT will come to its final creaking groaning shuddering halt. There is talk of taking lanes out of Midland and/or Brimley for buses only. 

Only four years ago our Mayor and Councillors were all concerned with gridlock. 

• Congestion on our roads was estimated to cost our regional economy over $6 billion a year. 
• We were reminded that the full cost of congestion is a lot more than just time spent sitting in traffic. 
• There is a multitude of logistical, economical, social and health-related effects which arise when people and goods cannot move efficiently. 

Our Mayor and Councillors told us:

Traffic is strangling this city and costing us millions in lost productivity. We need to take immediate action to get Toronto moving so people can get to work on time and home to their families sooner. 

    - Mayor Tory 

In order for Toronto to remain competitive and prosperous, it is essential that elected officials and governments partner with stakeholders to develop solutions that will keep people and goods moving efficiently across our city. 

    - Councillor Kelly 

If left unabated, the cost of traffic congestion is estimated to balloon to over $7.8 and $7.2 billion for commuters and the economy respectively. The economic potential being withheld by issues directly related to gridlock is immense. 

    - Councillor Minnan-Wong 

Gridlock, [while] rare here just two decades ago, is now a major inconvenience to residents, a growing constraint on our economy and a significant burden on public safety and our quality of life. 

    - Councillor Thompson 

We could not agree more wholeheartedly with these statements. 

Our questions to you are: 

1. Who is looking closely at each and every one of these road closures/lane closures/diversions to ensure each is designed to produce the absolute minimum disruption; 

2. Who is looking at the timing and sequence of all of these road closures/lane closures/diversions to ensure the absolute minimum disruption; 

3. Who is looking at the City’s own program of road resurfacing, water main replacement and so on all of which can close lanes/restrict traffic to minimize disruption and delay; 

4. Please, no more grand misguided adventures like taking two lanes out of Brimley for bike lanes until all of these road works and disruptions are completed. 

And lastly: who is taking responsibility to build a grade separation of Finch over/under the Stouffville GO tracks? It’s not in the Metrolinx plans. They’re doing Passmore, McNicoll, Huntingwood, Progress and Danforth but not Finch and there’s no way Finch can operate as a level crossing. 

If you haven’t seen them lately, below are the illustrations for these projects from the various reports. 

Bike Lanes on Brimley Road – Why Should You Care?

In late May Toronto Council approved taking two lanes out of Brimley Road and handing these over to the bike lobby. 

The bike lobby told our Councillor Michael Thompson that we needed bike lanes to get to the grocery store, the drug store, the LCBO and Beer store at Eglinton. They told him we needed to get our exercise by riding our bikes up and down Brimley. 

The lanes went in early in July. We’ve had 4 months to see how this is working out. Traffic is only partway back to pre-COVID lockdown ‘normal’ levels. When Brimley is busy we are seeing long lines of traffic forming in the single lane remaining. A single-vehicle stopped to make a left-hand turn into their driveway or their neighbourhood blocks the whole street. Long queues are forming at the traffic signals. 

Why should you care? 

Here are 8 good reasons why everyone in Glen Andrew should care about the Brimley Bike lanes: 

1. Bike lanes on Brimley today are just the start. 

This is just a ‘pilot project’ they snuck in when everyone was totally focused on the COVID emergency. The bike lanes won’t stop at Lawrence. The bike lobby wants to extend these all the way to Steeles. And then do it again on Midland Ave. 

2. Your friends and neighbours who front onto Brimley Road had their right to park and even just to stop in front of their homes cancelled by City Hall. 

There are +\- 200 homes with driveways directly to Brimley between Kingston Road and Lawrence. 

Whatever privileges they had to park or even just to stop in front of their homes before the bike lanes went in, they were cancelled overnight. City work crews took down the old signs and put these up: 

If your daughter parks in the curb lane, where she’s parked for years to bring over the grandkids, maybe deliver some groceries if you can’t get around, she’ll get whacked with a $150.00 fine. 

No-one knows how you get your roof repaired; your furnace replaced or even your lawn care company to come to your home if you live on Brimley. Where do they park?

3. Because practically no-one is using the Brimley bike lanes. 

• Even in the really good cycling weather of June, July and August. 
• Even when there was practically zero traffic on Brimley during the COVID lockdown. 
• Even when the City Hall bike lobby sent out 23,136 full-colour glossy pamphlets to sell their latest scheme. 

4. Because cycling is seasonal. 

Cycling on the really well-used bike lanes downtown where it makes sense drops off by +\-80 % from November through the end of April. 

If there’s almost nobody cycling on Brimley today in great cycling weather, how many people will be pedalling on Brimley in the dark and cold, on snow and ice from November through the end of April? 

5. Maybe you have been able to avoid Brimley Road but those are your friends and neighbours stuck waiting in those queues. 

• They’re riding the Brimley 21 bus to the subway. 
• They’re trying to get to and from their homes right on Brimley and in the neighbourhoods on both sides. 
• Those are our children riding school buses to Knob Hill, Hunters Glen and Charles Gordon public schools south of Lawrence and further south to Anson public school; 
• They’re waiting for the handicapped access taxi and the WheelTrans van; 
• They’re wondering how the service trucks can get to their homes to repair their furnace, fix their roof, or deliver the things they’ve ordered online. 

6. Because neither our Councillor Michael Thompson nor the bike lobby at City Hall has answered our question: 

How will snowplows, driveway plows, street sweepers and storm drain vacuum trucks do their jobs with bike lanes hogging the curb lane? 

7. Because a huge proportion of the vehicles going up and down Brimley every weekday belong to Scarborough businesses. 

These companies employ us. They employ our neighbours and kids. 

They help us maintain and improve our homes, deliver food to our stores, deliver what we’ve ordered on line. 

Here are just a few of the companies whose trucks use Brimley Road every day: 

Not to mention dozens of Atlantic Packaging’s tractor trailers, Crupi Paving heavy haulers and Praxair’s tanker trucks that use Brimley Road every weekday. 

8. Because two years is not “temporary”. 

When the bike lobby at City Hall grabbed two lanes out of Brimley for bicycles in July, they put up signs telling us this was ‘temporary’. 

They told our Councillors they’ll watch how things go and report to our Councillors “in the fourth quarter of 2021.” 

If you know how things work at City Hall, our Councillors won’t get around to these bike lanes until quite likely December 2021. Even if they decided then to remove the bike lanes, it’s not likely to happen until the spring of 2022. 21-24 months of this nonsense spanning two winters is not ‘temporary’. 

Make no mistake about it: 

• The bike lobby at City Hall, like a thief in the COVID night, grabbed half the capacity of Brimley Road for themselves while we were all busy trying to stay safe. 
• They grabbed both sides of Huntingwood: most of the 321 homes with driveways to Huntingwood lost the right to park or even just to stop in front of their homes with no consultation. 
• The bike lobby has their sights set on the rest of Brimley… right through Glen Andrew and all the way to Steeles. 
• Then they’ll do the same thing to Midland from Kingston Road to Steeles. 

Unless you speak up. 

Unless Mike Thompson hears from you that this is not acceptable. 

Here’s our message to Councillor Thompson: 

1. Remove the bike lanes from Brimley Road immediately…before the snow flies: 

• Take out the pylons. 
• Paint over the markings. 
• Put black bags over all the special signs you erected. 

2. Consider reopening the bike lanes next summer…June, July and August…AFTER some genuine discussion with all the homeowners who front onto Brimley, the communities on either side and the businesses who depend on Brimley Road. 

Join us. 

Tell Michael Thompson you support Glen Andrew’s request. 

Call him: 416-397-9274 

Email him: councillor_thompson@toronto.ca 

Write to him: 100 Queen St W Suite B24, Toronto, ON M5H 2N2 

Lorne Ross 

For the Glen Andrew Community Association 

NOTE

Glen Andrew Community Association supports cycling as a good weather recreational activity. 
We have sent the City all sorts of ideas on how to improve safe and attractive cycling using our parks, ravines, trails and hydro fields. 

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New Physical Farmers' Market in Scarborough

Scarborough Farmers' Market (physical location)

When: Tuesdays from September 1 to Tuesday October 6.

Hours: 10:00 A:M – 3:00 P:M

Where: Hand of God Dog Park 

Google Map

on the south side of Borough Drive across from the Scarborough Civic Centre

• Farm fresh produce
• Corn
• Maple syrup
• Pepper Sauces
• Samosas
• Sausages
• Skincare essentials 


...and more!

Please support our local producers and entrepreneurs!

scarboroughfarmersmarket.ca

courtardfarmersmarket.ca

(Online ordering not required for this market)

Open call for volunteer help

We need your help

In our last two newsletters, twice by email and our blog, we have asked that a few of our neighbours would give us a hand with some of the tasks that need doing in order to keep the Glen Andrew Community Association working properly. So far only two neighbours have come forward and have taken on a task.

We still need one volunteer to set up the meetings at St. Andrews Church. This includes:

• Reserving the hall at the church.
• Setting up the hall for the meeting and put everything back in place after the meeting.
• Be at the door yourself and have the guests sign in.
• Contact the other helpers who we have on file to help with the sign in and the sale of memberships.
  
  

We will also need one or two volunteers to help with organizing and set up for yearly litter clean-up day. This includes:

• Contacting the helpers we have on file to help with the sign in
• Handing out gloves and garbage bags
• one or two people to make and serve coffee, tea, soft drinks, muffins and donuts.
• Put up the clean-up day posters in our neighbourhood and order supplies.
• Show the volunteers what areas need to be cleaned of litter.

A new newsletter editor is also needed. This includes collecting the information for the newsletter and get the newsletter ready for print.

We do have a volunteer who will have the newsletter printed and delivered to the street reps for delivery in our neighbourhood.

Once you decide to help us, please send me an email or call me. Contact info can be found here: http://glenandrewcommunityassociation.blogspot.com/p/contact-us.html

We will meet with you and explain the task in more detail and answer any questions you may have.

Iain McLeod,
President