Tear off the Band-Aid
Is it better to suffer more traffic chaos for a shorter period of time, or mitigate the disruption a little by dragging construction out for months longer?
That’s the debate a Toronto neighbourhood will be having at a public meeting tonight. And whatever decision the city ultimately makes in this case may have broader implications for how construction projects are handled in Toronto.
The Bathurst St. and Eglinton Ave. corner is a traffic mess right now because of the construction required to build the Crosstown LRT and the new Forest Hill station. That level of chaos can continue with ever-changing lane restrictions until the end of 2019.
Or Metrolinx can move ahead with an alternate plan. That ups the ante for the neighbourhood by closing Bathurst a block north of Eglinton entirely, but would get the intersection back to normal by the end of summer, some 3 1⁄2 months sooner. Speed it up or drag it out — that’s the choice. The city’s transportation department recommends speeding it up. But that option doesn’t seem to be finding much favour among locals or their councillors, Josh Matlow and Mike Colle. That’s a shame.
The option to finish construction at one intersection a few months faster may seem like a small thing in the grand scheme of a multi-year project. But massive projects, including this 19-km transit line, are made up of hundreds of these kinds of seemingly small decisions. While no single neighbourhood decision will make a dramatic difference, they all add up to make it more — or less — likely that the project will finish on time and on budget.
And there are already plenty of questions about whether the Crosstown is on track to be completed in 2021. Delays have already cost the public a multimillion settlement with the construction consortium, and Metrolinx has rightly committed to find ways to accelerate the project before additional delays or costs are incurred.
But making good on that also requires councillors who are willing to navigate a path through the broad needs of the city and the more local desires of their constituents.
Is this a city that can find a way to get things done efficiently? Or is Toronto, as critics often claim, more adept at putting up roadblocks?
This intersection may well prove to be the latest test.