People at Eglinton Square share variety of opinions on transit plans.
Opinion on whether to put the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT above ground or underground was mixed at Eglinton Square Shopping Centre this week. (Feb. 1, 2012)
Staff photo/NICK PERRY
Nirupma Pandhi now has a cellphone photo of her standing next to Rob Ford.
But she doesn't have an opinion about whether the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown Light Rail Transit line should be built above or below ground beside Eglinton Square, where she was working this week.
Following a visit to the indoor mall in Scarborough's Golden Mile district Saturday, Toronto's mayor repeatedly suggested to the media, people who approached him at Eglinton Square "want subways" and "don't want streetcars."
Technically, the Crosstown won't be either one, but some city councillors want a debate on whether it's worth paying the extra cost to build the light-rail train in a tunnel from the Don Valley to Kennedy Station in Scarborough.
On Monday, Pandhi, who rides three buses from South Markham to watch her cousin's clothing store in the mall, said the trip takes 75 minutes in good weather. She concluded the LRT, above or below ground, wouldn't help much. "For me, it doesn't matter."
Pandhi said she didn't really talk to Ford, just saw a crowd and rushed out to get her picture taken.
Employees at a shoe store nearby did the same thing. They had not heard about the Crosstown project, which is projected to cost $8.2 billion and take a decade to build.
Over at the food court's Yogen Fruz was Hong, whose wife, the stand's owner, gave Ford a Blueberry Breeze smoothie (60 calories) during his visit, also said to be a "community walk" for his Cut the Waist Challenge.
Hong was aware of the debate, but said it was hard to choose which option was better.
"Right now, listening to TTC chairman (Karen Stintz, who proposes a surface route in Scarborough) I would think is a good plan," because the money saved, perhaps $1.5 billion, go to other projects, said Hong, who wouldn't give his last name and also argued for the opposite position.
"For the future I would think the other (putting the line underground) is better."
At Watts' Restaurant and Tavern, a business so established that it predates the indoor shopping centre and was incorporated into it, was Ana Gasser, a senior who said she lives just beyond the North York border.
She's been coming to the restaurant for 30 years, and, while finishing dinner, made her choice. "I would prefer under," she said. Asked why, replied LRT cars on the surface make "too much noise."
At a booth later in the week, Shawn, testing people's feet to sell them orthopedic inserts, was undecided, but said the city's transit system needs a major improvement.
"What that improvement is I'm not sure," said Shawn, who also did not give a last name.
A North York resident who lives not far to the north, he took a picture of Ford with his phone, on which he also keeps an image, he said, of a greatly expanded transit system he'd like his children to have one day.
"We should go the whole way to the zoo on one end, and the airport in the other," he said, but maintained the system's problems go beyond a need for greater speed. Scheduling for buses in the area, Shawn said, "is completely off."
Ford in his 90-minute walk around Eglinton Square was surrounded by friendly councillors and several supporters who were invited there. The mayor's Facebook page displays pictures of several women at the event wearing Ford T-shirts and buttons.
"It was a glad-hand," said Lisa Peatt, the mall's general manager, who said Ford kept moving but was "very gracious, took a lot of pictures, shook a lot of hands."
A few people posed questions, Peatt said, but none she heard were about the LRT.
The mall and its merchants, meanwhile are looking forward to the "subway," though they are concerned about what this may mean for parking, she said, adding because of the need for delivery trucks, "the thought of a surface LRT rolls my stomach."
Eglinton Square's owner Primaris Retail is planning a redevelopment to maximize potential of its land between Victoria Park and Pharmacy avenues and make the mall friendlier to pedestrians, she said.
"We want to be a gateway to East Toronto," Peatt said. "The city sees this as repairing the 'gateway feel' and so do we."
- Mike Adler