Mayoral candidates spar over rail link
The Eglinton Crosstown light-rail transit line became a hot topic Wednesday night as five mayoral candidates weighed in on residents’ concerns at a public meeting held at Richview Collegiate.
TTC Chairman Adam Giambrone, Rocco Rossi, George Smitherman, Giorgio Mammoliti and Sarah Thompson were each given two minutes to sound off on concerns about the 33-km, $4.6-billion Transit City line, which would link Kennedy subway station with Pearson Airport and the Mississauga Transitway with an above-ground LRT.
Rossi garnered the most applause from the crowd of roughly 100 with his jabs at Giambrone. The TTC chairman, on the other hand, seemed to draw more boos than applause.
“I’m not against mass transit, I am against mass-incompetency,” Rossi said. “The same people who built the fiasco of St. Clair W., who blew up the budget on the Union Station platform cannot be given the keys to the kingdom of a multibillion-dollar project.”
Giambrone wasn’t the only one booed. Former Liberal cabinet minister George Smitherman was heckled after he said, “I think those who are proponents for a subway are actually saying they’d like to kill the initiative.”
Residents say they are concerned about noise and traffic and many want the line to be put underground.
“It’s going to end up like the Allen Expressway — starting nowhere and ending nowhere,” said Roy Mullen, who has been living in the area for 21 years.
Mammoliti, a Toronto councillor, proposed a second look at Transit City because some corridors in the suburbs also require LRT.
Giambrone countered that in 1989 too much revision from city officials halted construction of an Eglinton West subway line.
“Construction will begin this summer on Eglinton,” he said. “That’s real progress. If you stop it, you’re going to be back here 10 years from now, discussing what to do about transit on Eglinton.”
jenny.yuen@sunmedia.ca
Your Comments
We have to have the Eglinton Light Rail Transit Line!
First, Joe Mihevc has promised the hundreds of union jobs to his union supporters.
Secondly, Howard Moscoe has promised the contracts to the mod contacts who pay for his election signs off the records.
Third we need the line to make driving cars a living Hell for those councillors who hate cars and the people who drive them, city councillors like opportunist Gord Perks who for years profitted off of city largesse through the Toronto Environmental Alliance, and nut cases like Glenn De Baeremaeker.
Soiled reputation
When George Smitherman announced he was running for mayor, something was bothering me about him that I couldn’t put my finger on. Then it hit me. He was the health minister who wore a diaper and said seniors in retirement homes can live on $3 per day — which meant sitting in soiled diapers for eight hours due to lack of funding. Shame on him and have mercy on us and seniors if he wins the race.
Sasha Dileo
(We’ll take that as a warning about the poop to come, for sure)