Residents continue to hope trains go electric.
Shawn Goldman and his three-year-old daughter, Coco, came to a press conference on Miller Street on May 5 to hear what political hopefuls with the Federal New Democratic Party (NDP), Andrew Cash, Peggy Nash, Mike Sullivan had to say about diesel trains.
Staff photo/ ERIN HATFIELD
They called it ground zero - Miller Street, located just north of the West Canadian Diamond. It was here three political hopefuls with the federal New Democratic Party (NDP) - Andrew Cash, Peggy Nash, and Mike Sullivan - gathered with residents on Miller Street in Toronto's Junction neighbourhood to talk trains.The West Canadian Diamond is where the Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway tracks meet, and the site of construction work to convert the tracks to a grade-separated junction, which will see hundreds of diesel trains using the tracks. It is here the NDP candidates say the effects of diesel trains will be the strongest."We are concerned about all the diesel coming in, if the air gets worse then we are just going to have to move," said Shawn Goldman, a resident of Osler Street.Goldman came out to the small meeting by the NDP political hopefuls on May 5 with his three-year-old daughter, Coco, to hear what the three had to say about the use of diesel trains in the Metrolinx Georgetown South Service Expansion and Union-Pearson Rail Link.The expansion is adding infrastructure to meet existing GO Transit ridership demand and future growth as well as accommodate existing and future VIA Rail and CN freight train service and a new airport rail shuttle service between Union Station and Pearson airport. That all adds up to potentially 450 diesel trains passing through each day.But Goldman, who also has a 16 and a 12 year old and who is recovering from a brain tumor, said he and his family don't mind trains, they just don't want diesel ones."We are more sensitive to health-related issues," he said.Terry Gopaul, who also lives in the neighbourhood, said he wants to see electric trains used on the line."My little boy here, he is already on a puffer," he said. "The most important issue here is him, it (puffer use) is going to get worse."Cash, who will run in the riding of Davenport for the NDP in the next federal election, said the NDP has been told in 10 to 20 years the area may have electric trains, but until then residents will see between 400 and 450 diesel trains go through their neighbourhood each day. The three recently went to Ottawa to meet with John Baird, minister of transportation and infrastructure, to raise the issue and to ask the federal government to invest in electric rail infrastructure instead of diesel engines.According to Nash, the minister said he wasn't aware if the money toward the project, promised by the federal government, was out the door yet or if there could still be conditions attached to it being spent."He can designate that this air rail link has to go electric and that was the message we left with him," Nash said. "Put conditions on the money so that the air rail link has to be electric."Nash, who will run for the NDP in the Parkdale-High Park riding which she once represented federally, said the three would follow up with Baird in a few weeks.Sullivan, who is set to run for the NDP in the federal riding of York-South Weston, has been vocal against the use of diesel trains since 2003 when the people in Weston first learned about the expansion."We need to make sure that no more trains go on this line unless they are electric," Sullivan said. "That is our message, that is what our constituents have told us."