Noisy LRT trial has Mechanicsville residents asking the city for relief
LRT is too noisy for people who live near the rail trench between Tunney’s Pasture and Bayview stations.
The Mechanicsville Community Association says it’s collecting complaints from residents about the noise from test-running of the trains in the area.
It might be a quiet ride for passengers inside the electrified trains, but the sound from wheels running over the rails tends to travel. In the Mechanicsville-Hintonburg area, the train travels in the old Transitway trench, which amplifies the sound.
The Rideau Transit Group (RTG) has been running its full fleet of Alstom trains regularly in recent weeks as it tests the LRT system.
At peak times, trains will arrive at stations every five minutes or less. Fifteen double-car trains will run on the rail line in the busiest hours. Trains will run as early as 5 a.m. at the start of the operating day and as late as 2 a.m.
In a letter to the city posted on its website, the community association said residents couldn’t enjoy the outdoors, even from their balconies, because of the loud LRT. The letter also says it has become a health and safety issue if people are walking on the paths at night and can’t hear what’s going on around them or if people are simply trying to sleep.
The community association also warns there could be an impact on property values. The association says a lowincome seniors’ residence is next to the LRT line and the seniors can’t enjoy their amenity space and socialize because they can’t hear each other over the train noise. The “whisper quiet” promise of the trains isn’t the reality, says the group, which is calling on the city to complete more noise tests and continue monitoring.
Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper on Friday confirmed that the trains were “unacceptably loud” in some areas, particularly around Parkdale Avenue, where there’s a highrise residential building, Parkdale Terrace.
Leiper said he had been working since April with rail bosses at the city about the noise and they would first try grinding the rails, a common maintenance technique for train systems. Leiper said he brought transportation general manager John Manconi to the site to gauge the noise.
“The city has acknowledged it’s too loud,” Leiper said, but he noted the sound levels were within LRT contract standards.
If the rail grinding doesn’t quiet the trains, the city could install dampeners on the rails to absorb the sound, Leiper said. The rail grinding could be done in short order, but it would take longer to install dampeners.
When Mechanicsville residents living in properties right next to the tracks were approached Friday, almost all townhouse residents said the noise didn’t bother them.
“It doesn’t bother me; the cars make more noise than that,” said Marc Cherfils, who lives at ground level a stone’s throw from the tracks, adding the noise was worse when he lived in Toronto and Montreal.
Ida Gabriele, a neighbourhood resident for 22 years, said she noticed the noise in the first week of testing, “but after that you get used to it” and it didn’t bother her when she was inside.
However, Lorrie Marlow, the community association president and author of the letter, says the greatest problem is for residents on upper floors of highrises.
Marlow said she found that the noise echoed or reverberated through the sunken trench where the trains go, causing a disturbance for residents with balconies overlooking the track.
“The fact that we are on such a busy corner, and we’ve had buses on here forever that never bothered us like this sound bothers us,” Marlow said. “It’s such an unusual and different noise, the peaks of it and the times that it happens. I think it’s definitely disturbing.”
RTG failed to hand over the completed LRT line by its deadline Friday. The city believes the handover will happen next week ahead of a possible public launch in September. “The question is, do you delay the opening of LRT until you (fix the noise),” Leiper said, but he was not asking for a further delay to the project, which is 450 days late. “All I’m looking for is a commitment to fix the problem.”
If the rail grinding and sound dampeners don’t work, the city will have to consider installing noise barriers, Leiper said.
The city will want to find a solution since the Stage 2 LRT extension west of Tunney’s Pasture will continue in the Transitway trench until the rail line reaches a tunnel near the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway. The trench west of Tunney’s Pasture passes through Champlain Park, Westboro Beach and Westboro.
Leiper agreed the city needed to find a solution before the trains ran farther west.