There Has to be a Better Way Than Closing the Scarborough RT for Three Years
Expanding the Scarborough Rapid Transit line is a great idea. For many Scarborough residents the SRT serves as a link between the Scarborough Town Centre and Kennedy Station – Scarborough’s Eastern most subway station. While the good people of Scarborough were sold this experimental technology as being subway compatible in the future, we found out in 2006 this just wasn’t the case. Enter the LRT concept, an idea that in this case preceded plans for Transit City and was born when nine of the ten Scarborough Councillors sold residents out on the Scarborough Subway concept all ten had supported before they had a closed door meeting with the TTC.
Now that the subway idea is dead and there is a more comprehensive light rail transit strategy for all neighbourhoods, I do support having light rail line linking Kennedy Station to Sheppard Avenue where the first Transit City line is already under construction. I can’t believe the existing link from Kennedy to McCowan can or should be closed for three years to make that happen. The old City of Scarborough and current City of Toronto has placed an emphasis on building high density condo towers around the Scarborough Town Centre – an area with three large commercial towers, a federal government building and the Scarborough Civic Centre.
This represents Scarborough’s best chance at building a mixed neighbourhood that mirrors a modern mid sized city’s downtown. It’s also been tremendously successful so far. It’s my strong belief that the Scarborough Rapid Transit is a large part of the sales pitch for making this development both make sense and attract buyers.
It is my hope that the TTC will recognize closing the Scarborough Rapid Transit line for three years will drive these condo owners, and commercial office workers to the roads, not so-called express busses and will also impact the accessibility of the mall by transit users. Anyone who has ever had to take a shuttle bus when the subway was down knows how awful the experience is, and for the TTC to see this permanent crisis mode as a solution for Scarborough residents is unthinkable and something that needs more thought before it happens.
It seems to me like a more reasonable solution would be to run portions of the SRT by having the LRT built from Sheppard to McCowen and transition from SRT to LRT technology one stop at a time working towards Kennedy, so the SRT can run from stations not currently under construction as long as possible. This would mean shuttles would run from no more than the distance between the closest two stations. As stations are also hubs for local bus routes, this makes perfect sense.
For those who live in Ward 43, the impact can be easily mitigated by taking an alternate route. I have to say growing up in Guildwood my friends and I would take the 116 Morningside bus to Kennedy and ride the SRT to Scarborough Town Centre. It wasn’t until I was in my early 20′s that I realized it’s faster and less crowded to ride the 116 Morningside to Ellesmere and take the 38 Highland Creek west along Ellesmere to the Scarborough Town Centre SRT stop.
Let’s all hope the TTC agrees there is a better way to operate when it comes to transitioning the SRT into an LRT.
Tags: 116 Morningside, 38 Highland Creek, Scarborough Rapid Transit, Scarborough Subway, Scarborough Transit City, Sheppard East LRT, Transit City, TTC
