Blantyre Avenue under construction
There’s construction chaos on Blantyre Avenue as city crews race to get the road in shape in time for the first day of school.
City of Toronto workers are repaving the road, rebuilding the sidewalks, curbs and gutters, and also replacing water pipes to improve the quality of drinking water.
The construction is more than a little bit disruptive for residents of Blantyre and the surrounding streets, as you can see from the following photos:
Getting in and out requires navigating an obstacle course and many homeowners have lost access to their driveways.
You have to admire the spirit of real estate agent Jane Rennie who is seen here improvising to get her groceries into the house.
Sure, that’ll work for the watermelon, but what about the rest?
A construction worker who witnessed the watermelon toss arrived within seconds to lend a hand.
Who says chivalry is dead?
No traffic calming for Blantyre
The construction has stirred up controversy because it doesn’t include traffic calming measures such as speed humps and choke points, which were requested by a majority of residents on the street. Their request was turned down by Scarborough Community Council because Blantyre is classified as a Collector Road (not a Local Road) and a study showed the volume and speed of traffic doesn’t meet the requirements for traffic calming.
Blantyre construction
It’s been frustrating for Blantyre residents, who are tired of their street being used as a high speed short-cut and say the situation is dangerous, particularly for children who attend Blantyre PS.
“It was a very good plan. It’s attractive, it would have been very effective, and it would have been installed for less than $80,000,” ~ Resident Cynthia Doull to Beach Metro News
But some residents who know the street has problems were opposed to speed humps, including Devon Nystrom, who is a Toronto firefighter:
“The traffic calming is good for children but it doesn’t work for firetrucks. We
Devon Nystrom (right) chatting with Jane Rennie
have to pull to a complete stop almost to get over a speed bump so it slows down the response to a house by almost a minute or two,” Nystrom says.
Controversy doesn’t end there
Some residents are upset for receiving what they consider short notice from the City about the loss of driveway use.
And, in a widely circulated email, a Blantyre resident complained that they were being “screwed over” because sidewalks on both sides of the road have been narrowed by a total of three feet.
City denies new sidewalks are narrower
A response to the email by Project manager Seamus Lui refuted the claim, saying the sidewalk width has either been maintained or widened:
Blantyre construction: Rebuilt sidewalks, curbs and gutters
“..As we have reviewed the design and talked to City inspector on site, it has been confirmed that the sidewalk on either side of the street are not being narrowed. In fact, during the design stage, it was our intention to maintain the existing width of sidewalk and widen the sidewalk where is possible and feasible to provide safer pedestrian conditions. In order to achieve this and also maintain the requirement of pavement width in Road Classification criteria, the proposed pavement width have been actually reduced, which results in an overall wider sidewalk on both sides of street.”
According to the city, the construction is scheduled to continue until at least October 19th.
Firefighter Devon Nystrom says people should try and make the best of a bad situation and not blame the construction workers for what’s going on:
Construction workers rebuild the west side of Blantyre Avenue
“These poor guys are getting yelled at by everybody. I went out the other day and said how long is it going to be like this, just because I have a 70-year dog walker. And he said to me “Oh my God”, and I said no, I’m not yelling. He said, I’m sorry, people are just so angry at us.”
The construction team on Blantyre have been very good. I think most people on the street have been friendly and cooperative. I know there has been concern about the lack of information concerning the asbestos in the asphalt being removed and some notice on when driveways are going to be inaccessible would have been nice. I had stone counters being delivered that were unable to be installed because of the driveway situation. I would have preferred to have the opportunity to notify the installers in advance instead wasting their time. That being said the the crew working are helpfull and make every attempt to assist the residents.
Traffic calming on Blantyre is supported by the majority of the street as reflected in the petition requesting traffic calming that was signed by eighty five percent of the streets residents.
We even had the support of former residents who contacted us offering assistance with the latest attempt at securing the much needed safety measures for the street. Several of whom had moved just west of Victoria Park to enjoy the better services offered in the former city of Toronto but missed the community.
Traffic calming is prevalent on streets similiar to Blantyre in the city of Toronto and East York. It is a very effective way of inexpensively encouraging drivers to drive at safe speeds on residential streets. Blantyre has a primary school, year round daycare and a very busy park with a lovely pool. All of these attractions encourage pedestrian traffic , many of the pedestrians are young children. Their safety should trump the right of impatient drivers to speed down a residential street.
The types of traffic calming proposed by the transportation dept. included chicanes, speed hump etc. all designed to have minimal effect on safety vehicles but maximum safety features. The recent report by the Chief Medical Officer of Health clearly highlights the need for slower traffic on residential streets.
Many residents remain very disappointed that Scarborough Community Council did not consider the publics overwhelming support for traffic calming when they voted against the proposal. Only Councillor Cho supported the community. The Chair of Scarborough Community Council, Ainslie went so far as to give misinformation about the proposal on social media and television. Interesting to note that despite repeated requests the community was not given an opportuinty to present the proposal before SCC, in fact the requests went unanswered by current Councillor Crawford.
Heartbreaking for our fiscally responsible residents was the huge cost saving that would have been realized by making these improvements during the road reconstruction.
Traffic calming is rare in Scarborough communities but very common in other communities. The children of Scarborough should have the same opportunity to walk safely to school and the park as the rest of the cities children.
Community building requires people feel safe exploring their community on foot, enjoying the outdoor spaces, visiting local shops. For far too long Scarborough communities have been ignored or seen as a thoroughfare. The lack of concern and responsiveness by Scarborough Community Council to local concerns exacerbates the communities issues and prevents much needed change.