Airport rail link back on track
December 16, 2008 07:55 AM - The long-awaited rail link from Union Station and downtown Toronto to Mississauga's Pearson International Airport has a new lease on life now that the Ontario government has ordered Metrolinx to take over planning for the project.
The Ministry of Transportation has taken the airport link file away from GO Transit and handed it to Metrolinx, the GTA-wide transit planning authority. Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion sits on the Metrolinx board of directors.
The project has been stalled for years, stuck between downtown policy planners and opposition from Weston residents living near the Georgetown GO line, who fear the increased rail traffic would split the neighbourhood.
"We're going to be meeting with the communities all along the corridor and we're going to be looking at the preliminary studies that have been done on the previous project, so we will not be starting from scratch," said Colleen Bell, the Metrolinx manager of community relations.
One advantage of the change is that Metrolinx — the provincial agency charged with integrating regional transportation — can employ a faster environmental assessment process than GO for its transit projects. A "Transit Environmental Assessment" would begin next spring and take six months, a much shorter period of time than the original process.
Mike Sullivan, chair of the Weston Community Coalition that was founded to oppose the project, still has reservations about the link.
He said Metrolinx should use electric trains instead of diesel, bury the tracks in tunnels through residential neighbourhoods and make local stops instead of running express to the airport.
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