Wharncliffe Rd. Transformation - CN Tracks

[Dupcheck]

Fake London at its best:

NYMBY's (1)0) City Roads

Go old lady go, enjoy your termite infested 120 year old home with zero energy efficiency.

[jammer139]

Yeah the London Advisory Committee on Heritage is the same as asking the Fox whether the hen house security needs to be improved. What a surprise they would support saving the house.

Originally Posted by haljackey

New article, new delay
http://www.lfpress.com/2017/01/12/london...ey-street-gets-backing-of-city-committee

[kaiserLDN]

City council have screws loose if they listen to a heritage committee on How to widen a main road artery. However I feel this will be approved. Maybe as a last option they could move the house somewhere else in the city and name the bridge after this lady since she is 75 to get this project moving. I don't see any options after that because this has to be widened for now and for future population growth.

[HillStreetBlues]

The Heritage Committee almost has to oppose expropriation and demolition of this home- what else can it say? But note the language- it will “urge” council not to demolish. Of course it will urge council not to demolish a 120-year-old building, but it won’t designate or list it, which is what would be required to save the home. There’s no grounds for that.

The woman is not a NIMBY and it’s not helpful to use that pejorative. Maybe her neighbours qualify, as their opposition relates to the fact that they don’t want an even busier thoroughfare bisecting their neighbourhood. I can see that as being a concern, obviously, and that should be heard and mitigated.

Some of the silliest comments to me related to this are from the last article by members of the Heritage Committee. They have to oppose the demolition of the house based on its age and its apparently well-preserved condition, I understand that. They do not have to start opining about traffic engineering. I know this was likely spit-balling with a reporter (word to the wise: try to avoid the temptation to do that) after the meeting, but making a comment about an urban highway (again: I have a lot of sympathy with this perspective) dividing a neighbourhood is outside of the view of the Heritage Committee.

I also particularly found the comment about roundabouts unfortunate. This is indicative of the fact that the speaker has no real sense of urban planning and traffic engineering: roundabouts are terrible for people on foot, and wouldn’t help the neighbourhood. He should stick to urging the City not to demolish old houses.

[database]

Originally Posted by HillStreetBlues

I also particularly found the comment about roundabouts unfortunate. This is indicative of the fact that the speaker has no real sense of urban planning and traffic engineering: roundabouts are terrible for people on foot, and wouldn’t help the neighbourhood. He should stick to urging the City not to demolish old houses.

I think the strangest part about it is that he was on Twitter a few days prior saying that losing homes to road widening happens all the time, and although he's a heritage advocate, he didn't think he could side with her. lol

[manny_santos]

My memory might be fuzzy on this, but didn't the City expropriate all of the homes and businesses along at least one side of Adelaide Street between Hamilton and Thompson Roads back around 1997 to widen the street to four lanes? No dwellings were demolished as I recall but if my memory serves me right some people (or everyone) had to vacate, and then the properties were re-sold by the city after the fact?

On that note, I still can't believe Adelaide was only two lanes between Hamilton and Thompson in my lifetime.

[jammer139]

Quite common as many of these roads where never planned to have more then 2 horse and buggy's side by side.

Now the wonderful realities of this is hitting our BRT planners as they finally realise that Richmond and Dundas streets aren't wide enough to accommodate the bus only lanes. Ooops!

The tragedy is we still have city planners and politicians making the same mistakes on today's infrastructure projects and not thinking about 25, 50, 100 years down the road.

Originally Posted by manny_santos

My memory might be fuzzy on this, but didn't the City expropriate all of the homes and businesses along at least one side of Adelaide Street between Hamilton and Thompson Roads back around 1997 to widen the street to four lanes? No dwellings were demolished as I recall but if my memory serves me right some people (or everyone) had to vacate, and then the properties were re-sold by the city after the fact?

On that note, I still can't believe Adelaide was only two lanes between Hamilton and Thompson in my lifetime.

[tyeman200]

Originally Posted by jammer139

Quite common as many of these roads where never planned to have more then 2 horse and buggy's side by side.

Now the wonderful realities of this is hitting our BRT planners as they finally realise that Richmond and Dundas streets aren't wide enough to accommodate the bus only lanes. Ooops!

The tragedy is we still have city planners and politicians making the same mistakes on today's infrastructure projects and not thinking about 25, 50, 100 years down the road.

It's sad this city doesn't plan for anything. It's also sad there's cities like Windsor that has a ring road and an expressway, and is half the size of London. I kinda wish the city would stop dicking around with stupid projects that are doing nothing to help this city, when we really need to focus on either an expressway or ring road for London.

[MrSlippery519]

Originally Posted by tyeman200

It's sad this city doesn't plan for anything. It's also sad there's cities like Windsor that has a ring road and an expressway, and is half the size of London. I kinda wish the city would stop dicking around with stupid projects that are doing nothing to help this city, when we really need to focus on either an expressway or ring road for London.

Just imagine if a little more push was used by counselors, London desperately needs a express route through the city. With some creative thoughts there ARE still opportunities to make that happen but I just cannot see it ever being done.

There have been countless opportunities to make a specific road have more flow so to speak but we continue to push the boundaries outside the city.

[Pimpmasterdac]

Adelaide was widened in the late 1980 - early 1990s, the new Adelaide bridge was completed in 1985, and the road widened southwards. AFAIK there was never any mass expropriation, but was widened from the centre out, thats why Adelaide homes have almost no frontyard. In retrospect would've been better, the houses on Adelaide between Hamilton & Thompson are complete shitholes, selling under $100k.

Originally Posted by manny_santos

My memory might be fuzzy on this, but didn't the City expropriate all of the homes and businesses along at least one side of Adelaide Street between Hamilton and Thompson Roads back around 1997 to widen the street to four lanes? No dwellings were demolished as I recall but if my memory serves me right some people (or everyone) had to vacate, and then the properties were re-sold by the city after the fact?

On that note, I still can't believe Adelaide was only two lanes between Hamilton and Thompson in my lifetime.

[jammer139]

Excellent targets for demolition and replacement with high density high rises then.

The Adelaide and Hamilton Rd area is ripe for redevelopment. As is SOHO along Horton and the old Hospital lands.

Originally Posted by Pimpmasterdac

Adelaide was widened in the late 1980 - early 1990s, the new Adelaide bridge was completed in 1985, and the road widened southwards. AFAIK there was never any mass expropriation, but was widened from the centre out, thats why Adelaide homes have almost no frontyard. In retrospect would've been better, the houses on Adelaide between Hamilton & Thompson are complete shitholes, selling under $100k.

[Stevo26]

Originally Posted by haljackey

New article, new delay
http://www.lfpress.com/2017/01/12/london...ey-street-gets-backing-of-city-committee

I'd really like to know how city engineers are going to be able to spare this woman's home and still manage to widen and improve the Wharncliffe-Horton intersection.

All this is going to do is delay the project needlessly. And it's all because of people who think that a knee-jerk emotional response is a valid argument for preserving this woman's home, even at the cost of delaying a badly-needed and important improvement. Or even possibly forcing it to be dramatically down-scaled with the end result that nobody is happy, and London continues to experience worsening traffic troubles.

The needs and wants of one person should not be allowed to hijack the needs and wants of every other Londoner.

We're probably going to see similar battles being played out when the city needs to expropriate land to make way for the first of the BRT lines.

It's too bad that the woman is faced with this situation, but I wonder if she would complain as much if the city offered to pay her twice what her property is worth and pay for her moving expenses? I know I wouldn't complain, and certainly wouldn't be looking a gift horse like that in the mouth.

As has been suggested by others, the city could even offer to move the house to another location. I wouldn't consider that to be a bad offer, because seriously, who really wants to live right next to railway tracks with all the noise, thumping and shaking they transmit into nearby houses when trains pass by?

[kaiserLDN]

This is the website to save the little house with the weed garden instead of widen the road to accommodate current and future transportation needs.

http://save100stanleystreet.com/about

[MrSlippery519]

4819 people have signed the petition...

I am all for keeping heritage properties as they are very important, however not at the cost of continuing to cripple London's traffic flow. There is an almost zero percent chance of that underpass not being expanded, I hope this does not delay it anymore as it should have been done 10+ years ago.

[haljackey]

If they raised enough money, its possible the house can be saved. It would be an expensive, logistical nightmare to take on the project without that space, however.

[kaiserLDN]

Maybe one of the almost 5000 people that signed the petition could find a new spot for the home and they could also help finance the move.

[Oliverfox]

Originally Posted by kaiserLDN

Maybe one of the almost 5000 people that signed the petition could find a new spot for the home and they could also help finance the move.

I don't get why they can't work around her house, there's plenty of space between her house and the road. Not to mention everything has been knocked down on the opposite-side leaving plenty of open room to expand the road and bridge. That would be a lot easier then moving the house don't you think?

[Pimpmasterdac]

City needs to move forward with this project, should've been done decades ago. 5000 people signing a petition means jack shit. The whole city and a major part of its transportation network & plan is on Wharncliffe/Western Rd being 4 continuous lanes. It's unfortunate that this woman has to lose her home, but there's always casualties in the name of progress. Province has delegated expropriation authorities to the city for cases like this, they need to use them and not get stalled by these loud cluckers.

[inimrepus]

Originally Posted by Oliverfox

I don't get why they can't work around her house, there's plenty of space between her house and the road. Not to mention everything has been knocked down on the opposite-side leaving plenty of open room to expand the road and bridge. That would be a lot easier then moving the house don't you think?

IIRC for them to widen the road they need to build a new railway bridge, for them to build a new bridge though they first need to build temporary bridge which is why they need to tear down that house.

[kaiserLDN]

I don't even know why she wouldn't take the money and run somewhere else.