Metrolinx not backing down from LRT stop dispute with Mississauga residents
Some elderly people and residents with disabilities in Mississauga say they're being left behind in the Metrolinx plan for a new light rail transit line through the centre of the city.
The line will run down Hurontario Street through the heart of their neighbourhood, and will include 19 stops. But the closest one to their condo complex is blocks away — up to a kilometre's walk for some — north of Eglinton Avenue.
"The distances between the proposed stops right now are too far for me to walk, especially in the winter," 77-year-old Jackie Sue-Wah-Sing said.
"I am upset, because we are not happy with what is going on, and we've been writing for a very long time, and nobody is listening."
Sue-Wah-Sing is one of several thousand residents — many of them elderly or disabled — in the Kingsbridge Garden Court neighbourhood just north of Highway 403, who have been lobbying to have an LRT stop close to their street.
But Metrolinx has insisted the stop needs to be farther north at Eglinton Avenue, because it can offer more services to more people.
"The stops are firm and final," said Darshpreet Bhatti, Metrolinx's vice president for the LRT project.
"At this stage, we're not having a dialogue on whether the stops should be at location A or B."
He said population density, the availability of other services, easy links to other transportation corridors and future growth all pointed to Eglinton as the preferred site for a stop.
Bhatti emphasized that current bus routes and transit for the disabled will remain in place.
"The LRT is not replacing all those options; it is another option on top," he said.
But Kevin Wilson, executive director of the Coalition for Persons with Disabilities, which has an office in the Kingsbridge condo neighbourhood, described the Eglinton stop as "a barrier" to his clients.
The coalition helps about 1,000 people a year with job training and placement services.
"We need people to be able to get here so we can actually support them," Wilson said.
"They currently rely on Wheel-Trans or Trans Help, which are in high demand and there isn't always an ability to get to everyone at all times," he added.
"People are not going to come ...The small amount of money it would take to make [a stop at Kingsbridge] is way cheaper than having to do it down the road when you have to retrofit a big system. That's way more expensive."
Sheila Bricks, who lives near Kingsbridge Garden Circle, uses a cane and a walker and for her, the roughly one- kilometre route she'd have to take to get to the Eglinton stop "would be impossible for me," she said.
"It's extremely frustrating because I'm going to be locked in my apartment. I can't do anything. Who can afford to use a cab all the time?"
The Hurontario light rail line is scheduled to connect Steeles Avenue and the Port Credit GO station, an 18-kilometre route that's expected to cost about $1.4 billion to build. A Metrolinx web page says the line will open in the fall of 2024.
The local Mississauga-Malton Rotary Club has a facility on Kingsbridge that offers services for seniors. President Ehsan Khandaker helped form an organization called Kingsbridge Matters.
The group has been lobbying Metrolinx to change the stop location.
"Many people didn't realize how far this LRT station is going to be," he said. "Instead of building it where 10,000 people live right now, they are going to move it to the north side of Eglinton. That is a long walk. Not only that, it's dangerous. And in the winter, impossible," Khandaker said.
"It's just a no-brainer."
