Today, stakeholders in the immediate vicinity of the proposed Cleary LRT station and media were briefed on a proposed change to the LRT route around Cleary Avenue (see inset, click to embiggen). The new route will turn south sooner to the east, which effectively makes it possible to have a proper station fronting onto Richmond Road, and takes the line out of the Unitarian campus property.
This was the City's originally preferred route. A station tucked behind the property at 747 Richmond Road - the strip mall - would have been uninviting and hidden. It also would have had a greater impact on Cleary from a traffic perspective. I'm fully supportive of giving the station this visibility.
A third benefit that hasn't received a lot of press is the preservation of green space in the NCC space behind 747 Richmond.
There's a lot of media attention being focused on this, so I won't get into a lot of the details. For our ward, there are some key considerations that bear mentioning:
I wanted to get this look out today, but I'll have more details in the coming days. Of course, I invite anyone with questions to contact my office.
On balance, I believe this is an elegant solution to some of the biggest issues with the previous alignment. Senior City staff are to be commended, in particular, for hearing the community's concerns and working diligently to overcome the challenges to addressing those. This proposal is able to be accomplished at the same cost, and my wholehearted thanks goes out to them for this work, as well as to my colleagues Councillors Blais, Egli and Taylor. To be sure, it raises new concerns for a different group of residents, but I believe that their challenges will be easier to address. I'm looking forward to continuing to work with residents and to hearing their feedback.