08-15-2016, 12:57 PM
(08-15-2016, 12:48 PM)taylortbb Wrote: I expect no one studied pedestrian volumes here because officially there are none. Officially the trail has no access to Fairway between Courtland and Wilson. The only accesses that did exist were cut in a fence or were because the property owner chose not to put up fences.
Not that that means there shouldn't be an access, there definitely should IMO, but it explains why it's easy to miss in the process. Studying it would acknowledge it exists, and could cause the region to be required to do something about it (like prevent it).
That's almost exactly what I was just typing up before accidentally closing the wrong tab... argh!
This is the whole crux of it. Had there been an official crossing beforehand, it might have been caught.
My fear with this whole thing blowing up right now is that blame is going to be (very unfairly) placed on GrandLinq, who, in my mind, have done no wrong. How can a project engineer in Toronto be expected to catch that there is a trodden path of broken bushes and fences and just add in an (expensive) crossing system with lights and deck plates for free? Bringing up the issue in 2014 (date here) is too late. Shovels were in the ground. This should have been caught or brought up by someone way back in the 2010-2012 timeframe.
As I suspected, Transport Canada may be the bottleneck here, now - as confirmed by Tom Galloway. We should know some more in the coming days. But please keep in mind that as a P3, the consortium has been contracted/hired to build a system to a spec - and changing the spec right now, today, means that the consortium has the opportunity to quote whatever they want for additional charges and add whatever they like to the timeline - and the Region sure as heck ain't gonna let that happen. The only way a crossing will go in here is if it is spliced in well after the substantial completion date is met.
It is an unfortunate situation. Don't get me wrong. But this slipped by everybody until it was too late. Let's not finger point.