The Negative Impact of a Potential Metrolinx Train Yard on Life in Thorncliffe Park
A photo from inside the famous Iqbal Halal Foods.
It’s a warm summer morning. You get out of bed, stretch the sleep away, go on your balcony, and watch the neighborhood you grew up in wake up with you. People are scurrying on the streets below, some with work outfits, others with grocery bags. Each of them exists in this neighborhood you call home.
But today is different.
Loud drills echo between apartment buildings, the lively strip of the local grocery store and Mosque is now a pile of rubble and dust, and families now leave the neighborhood to shop for culturally specific needs. A large wall blocks the view you once had, and meets you at the end of your street. The open view you grew up loving is now constricted, industrialized, and even worse - hideous beyond your imagination making you feel imprisoned!
The best way to describe the results in the MSF Site Selection document, is that it was Metrolinx’s biased decision to put a train yard in Thorncliffe Park. With 30,000 residents within 800 meters, it would make sense to be careful and thorough in your evaluation process. No such process occurred. Is it because 30,000 renters should have no say? Is it because this is a neighborhood of minorities? Metrolinx decided on their own terms to ignore the negative generational impacts that a train yard would have on Thorncliffe Park.
Metrolinx failed to consider how shuttering the limited neighbourhood space would affect the community. The businesses in this space hire Thorncliffe Park residents, who are mostly minorities and people of colour. It is difficult to get employment anywhere else, and the jobs here are considered a starting place for community youth to gain experience. Building a train yard impacts a major resource and reduces employment opportunities for local residents. This removes hope for a better future – despite Metrolinx promising a few train washing jobs as all the other roles are unionized.
Thorncliffe Park is already a small area. If Metrolinx wanted to build a station in this area, that is fine. However, building a large infrastructure project that maintains and cleans trains is ignorant and has all the elements of Environmental Racism. There isn’t enough space for this type of project in an already small neighbourhood. Such projects are positioned in a remote area with minimal traffic. Thorncliffe Park is a confined community; a train yard will be the start of the deterioration of the neighborhood.
Metrolinx may want their train yard in Thorncliffe Park, but at what cost? The cost of 30,000 people? The cost of youth and immigrants receiving less employment opportunities? Metrolinx is a government agency that is entrusted to look out for ALL of the people of Ontario, especially marginalized communities. Metrolinx has options to move the train yard to a less impactful location, but the 30,000 residents of Thorncliffe Park do not have the luxury to move.
Here’s how YOU can help out today:
Email the Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney (minister.mto@ontario.ca) and state the following:
Metrolinx may want their train yard in Thorncliffe Park, but at what cost? The cost of 30,000 people? The cost of youth and immigrants receiving less employment opportunities? Metrolinx is a government agency that is entrusted to look out for ALL of the people of Ontario, especially marginalized communities. Metrolinx has options to move the train yard to a less impactful location, but the 30,000 residents of Thorncliffe Park do not have the luxury to move.
To contact SaveTPARK:
Email: notrainyard@savetpark.ca or Phone: 1-855-657-2750