Archive for December, 2009
Christmas Reflections
To those who will join today with family and friends and celebrate Christmas, may I wish you a Merry Christmas.
My family Christmas tradition sees three generations of Laforet’s celebrating Christmas in Guildwood – where our Christmas dinner has been celebrated since 1968 and with the addition of spouses, children and family friends spans three generations and includes nearly two dozen people.
For me Christmas is a time to share with family and friends, catch up and reflect on the year that is quickly coming to an end. It’s also a time to make decisions about how you will spend the year to come.
This past year has been a unique and totally unexpected one for me that has seen many challenges and opportunities present themselves. My community involvement and activism have taken an angle I could not have predicted they would even when I decided last fall to actively work with Guildwood residents to oppose Toronto Hydro’s project.
While where it has led has been unexpected, the camaraderie and friendship that exists within Wind Concerns Ontario is second to none that I’ve witnessed elsewhere and I feel blessed to consider so many fine Ontarians standing up for their communities to be my friends.
Christmas 2009 will also mark the one year anniversary of the burning of the Studio Building at the Guild Inn – something that tragically destroyed a heritage building on a site with so much meaning to my community. It is my hope, by Christmas 2010 the old Bickford Inn will begin to look like it’s old maintained self again and we can move past the ‘lost decade’ the City of Toronto brought my community at the Guild Inn.
Next year I am sure will be interesting for it’s own reasons, but I look forward to the challenge and know I am in good company as we soldier on.
No Comments »Groundbreaking on Sheppard East LRT a Good Day for Scarborough
I have to say – I really like the Transit City proposal. I am hopeful the City, Province and Federal Government will come up with a way to fund it because it will have a profoundly positive impact on my community – and especially a number of low income communities that will be serviced with fast and frequent public transit.
The Scarborough Malvern and Sheppard East lines present a real opportunity to revitalize hurting communities that will see better transit service and easier access to Toronto employment zones. As someone who lives just west of Morningside and is currently working along Sheppard Avenue East I can tell you this morning during my one hour commute – taking the 116 Morningside to Sheppard, and the 85 Sheppard to Don Mills Subway and then the Sheppard Subway to my stop – having the Scarborough Malvern Line running up Morningside to Sheppard and the Sheppard Line to Don Mills would significantly cut this trip down.
Many lower income communities rely on service from the bus lines that will be replaced by these two LRTs and the ability to access employment in a more timely manner is someone no one should forget when determining the value of these projects. What’s more – public transit infrastructure encourages intensification along the new lines. This serves two purposes which are in the interest of everyone. 1) Higher density developments near transit lines encourage public transit use, which takes cars off the road. That leads to less congestion which is good for the environment and the economy. With how close Sheppard is to the 401 and considering they run mostly parallel – this is particularly good news considering the LRT will make connecting to downtown from the North and East parts of Scarborough easier.
I am happy to see the Sheppard East LRT is set to open in 2013 and look forward to the Scarborough Malvern line opening in 2015. My support for the Scarborough Malvern Line may be the only reason I bite my tongue on the total waste that is the 2015 Pan Am Games as my community will see an immense benefit from this infrastructure announcement, over the opposition of our local Councillor, who thankfully is being ignored by his colleagues in his bizarre opposition to this project.
While I strongly advocated for a Scarborough Subway as did many residents in 2006 when the idea had the support of all City Councillors in Scarborough and our five MPPs – seeing the proposed routes of the LRT lines I am confident that while a Subway would be a form of symbolic equity with the rest of the City, Scarborough will be best served by LRTs which meet the anticipated capacity requirements for Scarborough’s population better. It also has a price tag that may actually prove affordable.
I look forward to the day I can transfer trains at Kennedy Station to come home, instead of hopping on the 116 Morningside bus. Today that came closer to reality with a shovel going into the ground, committing the TTC to building Transit City – something all residents and politicians in Toronto need to get behind. Our next Council, to be elected this coming October will need to continue to find funding for these lines – something I sincerely hope they do and residents across Toronto pressure them to.
No Comments »Guildwood Residents Rejoice! Toronto Hydro Gives Community an Early Christmas Gift
When I found out today that Toronto Hydro Energy Services has abandoned plans to install the offshore Anemometer in 2009 – adding a further delay to this project which is now 18 months behind schedule. Scarborough Bluffs Residents should be proud of the work they’ve done through their activism to push Toronto Hydro’s timeline back so close to the winter months, making construction effectively impossible – something it took them almost two months of trying to realize.
We always said if we could push them into the winter months – we’d have more time. To the folks at Toronto Hydro – my heartfelt thanks to you for giving us more time to defeat you.
Toronto Hydro Energy Services employs some of the dimmest lights I’ve personally encountered at the ‘Director’ or ‘Vice President’ level. These foolish individuals who’ve flatly refused to do any sort of meaningful environmental assessment have failed to understand the conditions, and had them moving their construction barge all over the general area looking for a place they could install the device.
Guildwood residents are quick though and pushed back whenever it appeared not to be in the correct spot. We now have emails from Joyce McLean stating on two occasions the construction barge was at the right coordinates at which point it moved again, and she once again confirmed it was in the right spot, and then it moved again. Once again – something she says simply can’t be true.
Many of us had that ‘kick in the stomach’ feeling watching this barge try and figure out how to anchor something in the sand bar off the Bluffs, worried and wondering about the anemometer or possibility for turbines in the future. Seeing this play out, and being able to literally hear the voices, the songs on the radio, and the sound of a generator running from the barge have shown how the sound will travel over water – something that will only strengthen community resolve.
Toronto Hydro Energy Services is in for one hell of a fight. Residents will not back down until Toronto Hydro’s proposal is defeated and disgraced. Not a single turbine will be going off our shores, and those who want to keep pushing the idea have my sincere pledge that we, residents of the area will fight you and will never give up until this horrible idea is gone, and our lakes are protected from the untold environmental degradation involved in installing these things.
Toronto Hydro took a big step forward in their defeat by backing off on this proposal. Something they claimed would take a month took nearly two and ended in failure. Just like this whole proposal will soon enough.
Residents have a lot of work to do to convince our City Councillors who have been slow and ineffective, the City of Toronto and Toronto Hydro Energy Services to stop this proposal.
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