ID: 2210
Presenting Author: MARK ARMSTRONG
Session: 520 - Connecting infrastructure and IA – Assessing impacts in contested planning
Status: pending
Engaging with the most vocal opponents to a proposed infrastructure project can create even better solutions.
Davenport Diamond was the level crossing, known as a diamond, between the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railway and Metrolinx’ Barrie rail corridor in the Junction Triangle area of Toronto, Ontario. Metrolinx’ plans to increase rail service on the Barrie rail corridor required that the diamond be removed to eliminate delays. The rail rights-of-ways were barriers to the communities that grew up around them. The initial elevated guideway options proposed by Metrolinx posed changes in visual and air quality effects on the local community and did not improve community connectivity. Community opposition to the guideway was vocal and innovative. This paper looks at the process of actively engaging with some of the most vocal opponents to understand their concerns. This engagement identified that the community opposition to the project looked for incorporation of transit options for a traditionally underserviced area of Toronto in the proposed works and to enable the rail corridors to provide connectivity. This engagement led to the incorporation of a linear multiuse path to connect communities within the Barrie rail corridor after the guideway was brought into service and the proposed Bloor-Lansdowne GO Station to create a transit hub with the Toronto Transit Commission’s Line 2 Lansdowne Station.
Mark Armstrong has over 27 years of experience in impact assessments within the transit and transportation space in Canada, ranging from rail commuter systems to bridges and highways.