Was train yard destined for Leaside until MPP Wynne advocated against it?
The over 10,000 plus petitioners continue to be justified in claiming that Thorncliffe Park was arbitrarily selected as the location for the train yard without a fulsome, unbiased and thorough site selection process.
To further support this, on November 24th, 2021 at their Annual General Meeting, the Leaside Business Park Association and MPP Wynne both took credit and celebrated moving the train yard out of Leaside. The businesses in Leaside as would be expected, utilized their clout and political connection to ensure that the train yard would not be located on their properties in the affluent Leaside neighbourhood.
With the above political favour in mind, Metrolinx used their back-office staff, cobbled together a poorly designed desktop analysis of alternative sites, many of which did not fit their own site criteria. Metrolinx then trotted out a sham of a process to critical potential obstacles such as the local mosque, a few not-for-profit organizations and other tenants with a cash and falls promises in an attempt to fast track and remove obstacles from what is an inherently an arbitrary plan.
Regardless of political stripe, it appears that politicians take advantage of marginalized communities and show preference to non-minorities and affluent neighbourhoods when marginalized communities need the uplifting benefits that come about from transit oriented development.
Here’s how YOU can help out today:
Email Premier Ford (premier@ontario.ca), Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney (minister.mto@ontario.ca) and Minister of Infrastructure Kinga Surma (kinga.surmaco@pc.ola.org) and state the following:
The industrial business park in Leaside would have been a more appropriate placement for a train yard. In this section of Leaside, you already have chemical plants (where a worker died on September 8th, 2021), you have a concrete aggregates operations, low number of jobs and is not directly located next to 30,000 residents. This area is a more appropriate area to locate a train yard. However, why do you continue to take advantage of marginalized communities and show preference to non-minorities and affluent neighbourhoods when marginalized communities need the uplifting benefits that come about from transit oriented development opportunities?
To contact SaveTPARK:
Email: notrainyard@savetpark.ca or Phone: 1-855-657-2750