Allegations Port Authority jeopardizes children

Schoolkids must cross sometimes frantic taxi traffic to and from Island airport. Public meeting ends abruptly when hard questions are asked by public participants.

By Brian Iler –

The CEO of the Toronto Port Authority (TPA), Geoff Wilson, came under increasing attack at a March public meeting, primarily from parents children attending two local schools about the only access road to the Island Airport, and the construction site for its ridiculously expensive $82.5M tunnel.

The meeting, held at Harbourfront Community Centre, was called by the TPA to present its construction management plan for the tunnel project to the communities affected by it.

Contrary to expectations, the plan was presented as a fait accompli, rather than as one for which input was welcomed.

Parent after parent cited close calls with speeding taxis, and having to dodge taxis clogging the Queen’s Quay & Bathurst intersection, as the TPA’s aggressive expansion of the Island Airport brings far more traffic to the 2-lane Eireann Quay than it can safely handle. Adding construction traffic will make a terrible situation much worse, attendees stated.

Wilson repeatedly refused to give the assurances sought by the meeting that construction traffic would not use residential streets Queen’s Quay or Stadium Road. Failing voluntary compliance by the TPA with resident requests, community council is pursuing legal means to prevent turns and plans to install a red light camera at the intersection.

While the TPA had in past years provided paid-duty police to address taxi lawlessness, Wilson refused to commit to provide them going forward.

Parents and waterfront residents closely questioned contractor PCL’s plans to erect a plant to make concrete on a site just south of the community centre, which also contains two schools and a day-care centre. Silica dust from such plants is a known environmental hazard, and asthma is an increasing problem among children attending the schools. A child at one of the schools died from asthma last year, the meeting was told.

When a mother questioned why the provincial Ministry of the Environment was unaware of the proposed installation of a cement batch plant, the response from the TPA was that it is on federal land. The implication being that federal agencies are not accountable to citizens.

When questioned about the noise levels expected from the cement batch plant, the PCL representative stated he did not know how loud the plant would be. In other words, there is no intention of complying with City noise bylaws.

The proposed plant was not disclosed in the environmental assessment conducted by the TPA for the tunnel, a fact that may jeopardize the tunnel project as currently planned.

The meeting also heard that the land that is rented from the city for replacement parking and taxi queuing to facilitate tunnel construction will be put into use on April 2, even though site plan approval for its construction has not been obtained from the city. Last Friday, community members, citing the absence of that approval, blocked access to that land, stopping construction. The TPA paved the area over last weekend.

The meeting became increasingly raucous as Wilson alleged that the City had refused speed bumps on Eireann Quay—this, when many of those present had heard city Councillor Adam Vaughan tell Toronto and East York Community Council on March 20 that, although city council had approved the speed bumps, they had not been installed because the TPA threatened to sue the city if it did. Community council on March 23 had sent to city residents the motion requiring the speed bumps be installed after a delay since Aug. 17, 2010.

In a further escalation, Wilson insulted those who had accused the TPA of failing to pay its taxes to the city, calling the allegations “nonsense.”

This, when city officials had told that same community council meeting that $58 million in taxes has been billed to the TPA over the period to 2010, but the TPA has paid only $9 million.

One participant asked if the money being used for construction of the tunnel was the money that should have been applied to pay those back taxes. Wilson did not respond, and the meeting chair, Jim Faught of LURA Consultants, abruptly terminated the meeting before more tough questioning could be posed.

Brian Iler is chairman of CommunityAIR