ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit

[ijmorlan]

Why are people that don't want LRT to run on their street stupid? Because they disagree with you does that mean that they are stupid? Are they not entitled to voice their opinions? You don't have to agree with them but that does not mean that you should be labeling people as unintelligent.

They aren’t, necessarily. One has to look at the specific argument to decide if it’s stupid.

For example, one the quiet part of Eagle St., I personally think it’s OK to decide that the LRT needs to go through there, and if I lived there I would welcome it. But it’s perfectly reasonable for somebody living there to be concerned and/or opposed (not exactly the same thing). On the other hand, if they say “because it will increase emissions” then they’re being stupid.

Further east on the same road where it is busy, it’s perfectly reasonable for somebody to be concerned or even opposed because they won’t be able to turn left out of their driveway; but if their complaint is “it will ruin the character of the street”, then they’re being stupid. At least I think so.

Similarly, in Uptown, it’s OK for a business to prefer that parking be kept in front of their store, even though I think we made the right decision by removing some parking to allow LRT to go through. But if somebody north of Erb doesn’t like LRT because of the mess it’s made of King St. in front of their store, then they’re being stupid because that construction has nothing to do with LRT.

So there is lots of room for disagreement that I would consider reasonable, even if I think they’re wrong, but there is also a lot of unreasonable disagreement. I think one of the problems we have is that too many people are sufficiently disconnected from reality that it’s hard to get to the interesting questions that actually need discussion because so many people are saying things that are, to anybody with any basic knowledge (I don’t mean ivory-tower expert basic knowledge that may ignore basic facts, I mean the basic facts themselves), clearly nonsensical. How can we discuss transit when people are writing letters to the editor claiming that passengers will have to load from the street? I could give other examples from just about any topic of political interest.

[Bob_McBob]

How much expropriation does the current preferred route actually involve? Members of that group seem to be under the impression it would require demolishing over 100 homes, and the owners would be so poorly compensated they couldn't afford to live in the community anymore. They also think it would dramatically lower property values in Preston if the LRT passes through 

[DHLawrence]

I can only think of a couple churches, a couple houses, and an apartment building that might need total expropriation. The rest would just be land.

[Canard]

Does anybody know if the Eglinton Crosstown, Hurontario, or Hamilton LRT's will (or already) have had expropriations? If so, how severe were they?

[KevinL]

Crosstown will certainly have completed whatever expropriations were necessary. On the above-ground section, I think the road's right-of-way was already wide enough for their purposes. (The tunnelled part is very different, as station buildings had to be inserted into the existing built environment - multiple properties, mostly commercial, were wholly taken.)

[Canard]

Crosstown will certainly have completed whatever expropriations were necessary.

I realize that, but I guess what I'm asking is, what was the quantity or severity of said expropriations? How bad were they and how do they compare to Cambridge?

[Pheidippides]

We don't know how they will compare to Cambridge because they haven't gotten to that point. It was very clear in the materials. It is going to depend on the final route.

"The study has not yet advanced to the stage where individual property impacts are known. These details will be available at a future public meeting in Early 2019."

[ijmorlan]

Crosstown will certainly have completed whatever expropriations were necessary.

I realize that, but I guess what I'm asking is, what was the quantity or severity of said expropriations?  How bad were they and how do they compare to Cambridge?

I don’t know all the details, but I know they had to expropriate a number of complete buildings in order to build stations, emergency exit structures, ventilation locations, and traction power substations. I think that besides these individual locations there were probably not many expropriations. In the part of the line where it will be on the surface I understand the road is already very wide so my guess is there was little expropriation there also. So overall I believe there were quite a number of full property takings and hardly any narrow slivers.

Of course we’re not considering underground here so the most a station would need would be a little bit more width to fit the platforms in along with transit and vehicular lanes. As a result we tend to have mostly slivers with very few full property takings.

[darts]

Franklin Blvd. in Cambridge only required 3 complete buyouts, where two residences and a store were demolished. For that length of road, the property impacts would likely be comparable in magnitude, although this is a rail project rather than for a road. The other 90 or so properties were only narrow slivers of land.

Franklin Blvd has a lot more space between the road and businesses/houses than eagle st/ the smaller streets in the residential neighbourhood. I don't think it could be used as a comparison.

[danbrotherston]

How much expropriation does the current preferred route actually involve? Members of that group seem to be under the impression it would require demolishing over 100 homes, and the owners would be so poorly compensated they couldn't afford to live in the community anymore. They also think it would dramatically lower property values in Preston if the LRT passes through 

Lets be clear though, that group doesn't know any more than anyone else how many demolitions would be required.  They are quoting 100 because it helps them drive resistance to the LRT.  Even if they knew it wouldn't be 100, I suspect they'd still say it.

As for compensation, I have no idea how that works, but they certainly cannot have it both ways, either it lowers property values and those people who have full takings can therefore easily afford to stay in their community, or it drives prices up, and they may not be able to stay.

[DHLawrence]

I expect most of them *will* be torn down, but only as the land is bought up by developers. I don't know how anyone can have a house on the uphill part of Eagle anyway; how do you get out of your driveway in rush hour?

[tomh009]

They also think it would dramatically lower property values in Preston if the LRT passes through 

That must be based on the collapse of the property values near the LRT in Kitchener and Waterloo so far ... 

[danbrotherston]

They also think it would dramatically lower property values in Preston if the LRT passes through 

That must be based on the collapse of the property values near the LRT in Kitchener and Waterloo so far ... 

Ask the average person anywhere in the Region and there's a good chance they won't understand that's sarcasm.

[tomh009]

Sadly, you are most likely correct!

[greybird]

That must be based on the collapse of the property values near the LRT in Kitchener and Waterloo so far ... 

Ask the average person anywhere in the Region and there's a good chance they won't understand that's sarcasm.

Or they'd complain about how they have to pay higher taxes now that their property is worth more.