IT031003

Raised Streetcar Line Worries Merchants

STAVROULA MEDITSKOS
October 3, 2003

Insidetoronto.ca

All Jeff Gillan wants is to have his voice heard.
Gillan, co-chair of the St. Clair West Revitalization Committee (SWRC), said the city is ignoring his - and his neighbours' - pleas to prevent a right-of-way lane for the St. Clair Avenue streetcar.

As the owner of a children's specialty clothing shop at St. Clair Avenue West and Dufferin Street, Gillan is one of many merchants opposed to a plan to raise the streetcar tracks and give them a dedicated lane, much like the Spadina Avenue streetcar.

The plan comes at a time when the tracks need to be replaced as part of the city's state-of-good-repair program for arterial roads.

An environmental assessment to determine the feasibility of a right-of-way lane is forging ahead, a process Gillan said merchants along St. Clair West are being shut out of.

"All we want is a fair process. They told us that the public consultation process would begin in July (and run) until January and now it's been pushed from October until January," he said.

According to Gillan, that shortens the amount of time the SWRC has to make a case against the proposal.

The SWRC, a working group composed of area residents, business owners and community stakeholders, contends the right-of-way lane would harm the local economy, reduce traffic to a single lane on both sides and cause parking problems.

With a daily passenger load of 32,000 riders, the 512 St. Clair streetcar operates on St. Clair Avenue West between Yonge Street and Gunns Road, just west of Keele Street.

During peak travel times, the streetcar carries between 45 to 57 per cent of all people travelling on St. Clair Avenue West; only the 510 Spadina Avenue streetcar carries more passengers per route kilometre.

According to a city staff report, giving streetcars the right-of-way along St. Clair Avenue would not only shave six minutes off the 35-minute commute from Yonge Street to Keele Street, it might even convert drivers who use the route into TTC users.

Gillan said TTC chair Howard Moscoe's willingness to rubber-stamp the proposal makes the public input process questionable.

"We realize it'll almost certainly go through, but the city isn't considering the concerns of the merchants along St. Clair," Gillan said.

"St. Clair is a high-end destination shopping district. People come from all over Ontario, even Ohio. We get busloads of people from St. Catharines every Sunday. If there's no parking, how are they going to get the things they need? A lot of them don't carry things like wedding dresses on the streetcar."

Moscoe (Ward 15, Eglinton-Lawrence) said his partiality toward the plan will not affect the environmental assessment process because it is carried out at arm's length from the TTC.

"Do I have biases? Of course I have biases. I'm a politician, I'm elected into office because of my biases.

"The merchants will get a chance to have their input. It's a fair process," he said, adding the public consultation process has not been shortened, it has simply been changed to a new date.

He said the merchants' parking concerns are also unfounded because more parking lots will be added to the area. "I'm a strong supporter for public transit on rights-of-way. The fact of the matter is that this thing has to move forward quickly because St. Clair West has to be reconstructed," he said.