LRT is the future, but let's also respect the past

We don't need to know the significance of September 11.  It has become the stuff of legends and folklore.  And September 11th, 2010 will remembered by some to be the ninth anniversary of that great event which has become a modern-day metaphor for Pearl Harbor.  That's to some, but not to me.

That's because my family excitedly agreed on this being the day that we went to the Halton County Radial Railway Museum, on the other side of Milton, in the Guelph/Ermosa township community of Rockwood.  My boys, being railfans, love the place.  For those who are not familiar with it, it is a museum of restored and fully working streetcars from the many eras of the TTC.  They also feature subway cars from the TTC's past, along with one set of metrorail cars from Chicago.  Then there are the working interurban passenger railcars from the Montreal and Southern Counties line, as well as the London and Port Stanley line.  In a nutshell, it's the Warplane Heritage Museum of streetcars and if you really want to see the entire collection list and photos, click the link above and go to the website now!

Unlike the metal monsters maintained at the Warplane Heritage Museum, the majority of these cars are made of wood and are subjected to the natural processes of decomposition that comes with it.  But when they are fully restored, they are beautiful things.  And the trip up and down their rail line makes one think back to the days when such services were quite common.  It's rather sad to know that a lot of these railway lines are gone, probably to never come back.



Unless otherwise stated, all photos by Rene Gauthier


We really picked the right day to visit the place, as the Sir Adam Beck Centre, barn #4, opened its doors to the public for the first time.  This was their new indoor facility, a vision realized after a decade and a half.  This building will allow the facility to get more exhibits, especially one of the soon to be retiring streetcars from the TTC.  But that's not really what got my attention.

First when you come into the parking lot, you see four of Hamilton's trolleybuses, 7801, 7802, 765, and 732.  These in themselves were a part of our daily fabric when taking the bus along the King, Barton and Cannon routes.  And I know that I've taken many a ride on at least three of these vehicles.  Living around Reid and Dunsmure, I would pass the Cannon trolleybuses as I was walked to my school, Sir Winston Churchill.  At one point we were relieved to see that the HSR were continuing the trolleybus service as they set up the original Eastgate Square terminal with the double wires.  That was until I started seeing that the Cannon buses were no longer trolleybuses, but diesel buses. 

And so began the end...

At one point, we were encouraged by the testing of an articulated bus that used both trolley wires and a diesel engine, but that was short-lived.  The King and Barton routes eventually followed the Cannon's fate and those double wires we were so accustomed to seeing above the streets just disappeared.  Then there was the ill-fated project to install diesel engines in the trolleybuses.  By that time, the writing was on the wall.

So why did they do away with them?  I got some perspective from my father-in-law who used to work in the maintenance department before retiring in 1996.  He told me that the problem with the trolleybuses was in having to replace the poles when they came off the wires, which was quite inconvenient, especially to the drivers.  There are several ways the poles could lose contact with the wires, and that's largely because the buses were not on a fixed track so even sudden movements could move the poles off if the driver didn't know what he was doing.  They finally came to the conclusion that they were too much of an inconvenience to the drivers and maintenance personnel alike so they decided to remove them altogether.  And the rest is history.




Courtesy:  Halton County Radial Railway Museum

 So my journey to barn #4 began and I started looking for it.  It wasn't there so I went into barn #3 and I found it.  Before, one would have to struggle with finding it, but now that barn #4 is open, it's stands there in plain sight.  I am talking about HSR #521.  It is the only known streetcar in the HSR fleet still standing and it's story is a tragic one.  After deciding to do away with streetcars, they sold of their fleet and #521 ended up on a farm in Beamsville, used as a shed.

We gave up streetcars for buses and trolleybuses.  The city buried those tracks along Main Street, to remove them once and for all in the 90's.   Other than #521, we are not sure where the other streetcars are.  As I'm sure that the Warplane Heritage folks can concur with their planes, this is the typical fate of old buses and streetcars everywhere.  They end up on some sort of farm for storage or accomodations.  Yes folks, that's our heritage wasting away at some obsure place in the country, because the city would rather get rid of them rather than preserve a piece of history.

And now here we are, considering the installation of an LRT system.  And now I'm wondering why after all this time, we want to bring this back.  Isn't that what this idea is?  Sure it may not necessarily share its tracks with the cars.  We don't know that plan yet.  But consider the fact that we are actually bringing an old idea back no matter what part of the road it sits on.

Such things make me ask why in the world did the city remove it in the first place and wouldn't it have saved us trouble if we just kept it in the first place?  I mean this is a very expensive lesson that has just been passed onto us.  And it is indicative of the short-sightedness that we have come to know and despise about living in Hamilton.

I look at this wonderfully restored Peter Witt, that the city of Toronto chipped in and helped rebuild, to find the last relic of our transit system past, languishing in the neglect of its original owner and I have to wonder why would we want to go back to this.

I say this because we made a commitment to this system for about four decades before finally doing away with it, so what's to stop the city from doing the same 40 years later?  If we are headed in this direction, it should be a permanent, longer-term commitment, beginning with the city immediately funding the restoration of this wonderful machine.

We have spent the last year arguing about a legacy of another kind.  We currently have a series of places that maintain a legacy in sports.  How about bringing back one that travelled along our streets before a lot of us were born?  That's the challenge I make to the next mayor of Hamilton.

So what's wrong with the West Harbour?

We've heard so much about what's wrong with whatever location the Ti-Cats want that we really don't talk about what's wrong with the West Harbour location.  And don't get me wrong here.  In the right hands it could be a beautiful thing, but there are still disadvantages to the location.

Here's what I think is wrong with the West Harbour as a location for the new stadium:

• Visibility - The stadium would not be visible at all from any major highway because it's too far away from the QEW and it is completely hidden from view on the 403 because it's on the wrong side of the Burlington Heights.  The contention of visibility is naive at best.
• No Direct Highway Access - Burlington Street in that area is no highway, Bay Street doesn't have enough lanes and since the Parimeter Road project is dead in the water, there won't be any direct highway access any time soon.  The location is tucked away.
• Parking  - Yes, parking is everywhere but where it needs to be.  So there's parking a walk away from site.  And will the Tiger-Cats get the money for that?  Didn't think so.  But the city will apparently bend over backwards for the NHL.  So bend over backwards for something that may never come and screw the guys who are here already.  Not a good idea.
• Nice Spot but... - We see visions of stadia on a lakeshore or by a major river.  What's wrong with the West Harbour?  What's the major feature of the harbour?  It's an inland harbour.  Nobody's going to see from the lake.  All the other waterfront stadiums can be seen on a river, at the bayshore of San Francisco, or even at the shore of the lake, but an inland harbour is a different story.  It is only visible from Burlington and nowhere else.  What's the point in having a nice jewel if you don't have something to show it off with?
• RESIDENTIAL LANDS! - People's home are getting torn down over this.  Is it worth it?  Furthermore, why are we building a stadium in a residential area anyway???  Do we need another Ivor Wynne Stadium?  The problems with Ivor Wynne Stadium are not just with its age, but with its location.  A stadium in a residential area will not enhance their property value.

We have been left with a few choices here.  Build close to a residential area, to find out that Paradise is lost and that the Tiger-Cats will not be there, build in a growing commercial area, to end up promoting sprawl or build in an newly established commercial district where employment growth is apparently happening to seemingly trade a stadium for jobs that may or may not be there.  These are the choices we have right now.  They are not easy ones, fraught with ifs, whens, withertos and wherefores.  But these options should also have an endorsement by the Tiger-Cats who will have a soccer team in place as well once the deal is done. 

We look to the wisdom of those in charge to do what needs to be done to get all the parties to agree on a deal that works for the stakeholders.

Shut Up and Let's Get a Deal Done!

Now that the city will study and determine how a stadium could be built at the Longwood location and they will try in earnest, having learned from city manager Glen Murray what we all should have known all along:  no Ti-Cats, no stadium. 

Fred Eisenberger didn't listen the first time around so he was told again just in case he forgot.  The urban planning/city building fetishists didn't listen, claiming that they were "standing up to a bully."  I am still trying to figure out this logic, because what we all know is that Bob Young was basically told that the west harbour was where the stadium would be and for that reason the Ti-Cats just walked away from the talks, because there was nothing to talk about.  That's not where they wanted to be and with no alternative offered, why bother talking?  After all, there's lost revenue in parking and other incidentals that the Ti-Cats could use to get more money from people who drive.  And those who were gasping about this "cash grab" probably never drove to the games, to play that famous game of parking roulette which has been such a pain for the regional goers that they finally decided that enough was enough.  But once again, I digress.

So the Ti-Cats and the city are talking again about building a stadium at the McMaster Innovation Park.  While there is some merit to it, there's some concerns. 

One of them is noise, which is silly.  There is a freeway beside the site and no residential property within a half a kilometre, including the newly developed homes around the Chedoke golf course.  Perhaps they should try living on Balsam, Melrose, Beechwood or the other roads around there to get a taste of what the neighbours have been putting up with for decades.  The stadium won't be that close to them so they should just quit while they still have some credibility.

Traffic is another issue and one which has always been an issue no matter what site it is.  West Harbour claims to have better access, but the roads are hardly multi-lane so you could beat that dead horse for a while, but nothing changes the facts.  And of course there's parking to contend with as well.

It just seems that when there is a spot, somebody is always whining in some way.  But it's not because it's promoting sprawl and it's not because it isn't in a downtown location.  It's not because houses will get torn down to make way for it.  It's not because it isn't directly accessible from a major freeway.  It's not because it's a greenfield.  Now it's because it's supposedly prime employment land.  But haven't we figured this out already?  If you build it, they may not come at all.  While there is a plan to build an automotive innovation laboratory, they are still waiting for the grant to come so it may not get built at all.

Then comes an explosive allegation from Bob Bratina that a lot of the businesses that are at MIP actually moved from downtown.  So rather than bring new businesses into town as MIP was expected to do, they actually had businesses move in from the downtown core, increasing the vacancy rate there.  So as Coucillor Bratina has said, MIP hasn't really fulfilled its mandate so by that token, there is an opportunity to relieve the group of some land so they can avoid the pressure in having to get more empty buildings over there. 

Councillor Ferguson brought this initiative forward and is to be commended for bringing the Ti-Cats back to the table.  He did this because he got word that MIP was willing to help the city keep the Ti-Cats in Hamilton so I am not sure what the West Harbour crowd is screaming about, because the MIP people are willing to discuss this.

It's as if they are trying to ensure that the MIP are not being taken for a ride by "Big Bad Bob Young" who is really incapable of hurting a fly, but apparently can really hurt your feelings.  Yes, the whole thing is pathetic, but what were we expecting?

Honestly, I am expecting people to shut up for the next couple of weeks and let the big boys sort it out.  That's why they get our big bucks.  And I expect Fred Eisenberger to be an honest player in this because it is through his doing that the stadium project was at the edge of the cliff.  And I also expect people to quit whining about Mark Cohon approaching the feds about the stadium matter.  You had to know that he was going to approach someone in a matter regarding a member team.  The CFL is a cultural organization and anything matter than involves federal funding and the CFL becomes a national matter.  Deal with it people.

There's enough sour grapes in this matter to drive us all off a cliff, so let's just take a step back and let things settle for all our sakes.