With days remaining in an interim injunction preventing Metrolinx from cutting down 200-year-old trees at Osgoode Hall, community members from across Toronto met at City Hall Wednesday night to review alternative plans for an expanded Osgoode subway station.
Metrolinx, a government agency controlling transport within the Greater Toronto Area, is planning a new 15.6 kilometre subway line called the ‘Ontario Line’ from Exhibition Place to the Ontario Science Centre.
Last May, it was announced space within the garden outside Osgoode Hall would be needed to build a station entrance at the northeast corner of University Avenue and Queen Street West.
These grounds and fencing currently date back to the Confederation in 1867.
Wednesday’s meeting was organized by Toronto Councillor Ausma Malik to explore alternative ideas to save historic trees marked for destruction on Osgoode Hall grounds.
“I’m a champion for public transit, I know how important the Ontario line is to us. I am absolutely for expanding our transit infrastructure like we all are,” Councillor Malik said.
“The Ontario line can be built better when community is at the table and to get the best outcomes for the transit process and the best outcomes for a city that we possibly can,” she said.
Derrick Toigo, Executive Director from the Transit Expansion Office, told the meeting that a recently passed provincial law prohibits the City of Toronto, and agencies from stepping into the constructive process.
“Metrolinx has the right to remove obstructions which are what they consider the trees and structures, which would include the fence on either side or about the transit corridor itself, or within 30 meters of that transit port,” he said.
City of Toronto staff even hired a third-party architecture firm to review alternative layouts for the Osgoode station that might save the trees. Most of the alternatives were dismissed because they left insufficient space for construction staging and ventilation shafts.
The study also looked at expanding the station on the west side of University Ave., near the Cambell House museum site.
“The answer we had from Metrolinx was that the destination site that we see as what’s currently the Campbell House site cannot accommodate the requirements,” said Peter Llody-Jones, Senior Architect with Parsons, the firm that conducted the study.
When asked if Parsons had confirmed the site dimensions of Campbell House, they had not checked the dimensions themselves and had only gone by what Metrolinx had said.
“I would like to see further proof, I would like to see Metrolinx’s design development to back up their assertion that this cannot be done,” he said.
Liz Driver, Director and Curator of Campbell House, believes that the site is large enough.
Driver brought up the ‘Osgoode Plaza Solution.’ This is a community proposal that would see University Avenue realigned to create a public plaza space that could house the expanded station entrance.
Driver said it’s the only option that has potential to minimize negative impacts to the Osgoode Hall property and improve the public realm.
“I’m concerned that Parsons did not receive all the information about this option, either because Metrolinx never did consider what engineering adjustments it could make to implement the plaza location or the transit expansion office because that office is not involved in city business,” Driver said.
According to Parsons, this proposal was seen by them, but was not brought to their attention.
Councillor Malik ended the meeting by saying there is a better way in completing the subway line properly, and Metrolinx is making a choice themselves and not by the community.
“No one here is interested in a delay. We want to speed it up and we’re offering Metrolinx the opportunity to be at the table with us to figure that out.,” Malik concluded.
The injunction is in effect until Feb. 10 at midnight unless the courts extend it further.