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Frustrated transit riders left in limbo since the beginning of June are wondering why streetcar track repairs at the St. Clair West subway station weren’t done during construction of the St. Clair right-of-way.
Instead of zipping down the centre lane, they’ve been left taking shuttle buses enmeshed with regular traffic between Yonge and Vaughan.
TTC chair Adam Giambrone is blaming Save Our St. Clair, the residents’ group that unsuccessfully took the city to court two years ago to stop the right-of-way in its tracks. He says the two months in court held up the repairs.
“Once we bumped it out [of the repair schedule], we just couldn’t fit it back in,” Giambrone says.
Save Our St. Clair contends that the TTC is making excuses.
“Giambrone is grasping at straws here,” says SOS chair Margaret Smith . “I have been dumbfounded by the delays in construction. In different locations they poured concrete, came back, ripped it up, poured it again.”
Jeff Gillan, executive director of the Corso Italia BIA , worries that the second phase of construction west of Vaughan to Caledonia will now run past next spring. The whole ROW line is now supposed to be ready for next summer.
“There have certainly been some issues with coordination of the various stages of the construction that have not been done as well as they could,” says transit advocate Steve Munro .
But he agrees with the TTC that there was no way around scheduling track repairs.
Now, if the TTC could only fast-track the transit shelters along the ROW. Their construction has also been delayed.
