May 29, 2008: THE SCARBOROUGH MIRROR

"We're quite simply not going to let them get away with it," resident says

By DAVID NICKLE

Toronto Council rejected last-minute pleas to save the Kirkhams Road Bridge Tuesday, May 27, evening, voting instead to go ahead with an environmental assessment on the removal of the aging structure that has been closed to traffic since 2005.

The bridge, which crosses the Rouge River, had serviced a small group of homes near the Toronto Zoo off Meadowvale Road. While the neighbourhood of three houses has access via the Zoo Road to the north, residents and local Ward 42 (Scarborough-Rouge River) Councillor Raymond Cho have been advocating the reconstruction of the bridge, at a cost of $1.9 million, to improve access for emergency vehicles.

Transportation staff, however, have maintained that the bridge couldn't be rebuilt to current city safety standards for less than $4 million, in part because the watermain that travels underneath the bridge would have to be buried.

After having been deferred several times for further mediation between staff and residents, the matter finally came before the last meeting of the public works and infrastructure committee, where committee members found themselves deadlocked.

So the debate proceeded to Toronto Council.

There, Cho did his best to rally support for a bridge reconstruction.

He told councillors that a fire would result in seniors being "trapped. There is no way of escape."

He pointed out that in its history, the bridge had been used to haul garbage to landfill through the community, and that because the residents there had put up with those trucks they were owed the bridge now.

Some of Cho's fellow Scarborough councillors backed him up.

Ward 41 (Scarborough-Rouge River) Councillor Chin Lee said that despite staff assurances that the existing road network provided adequate fire, police and ambulance protection, the bridge would improve it.

"Emergency vehicles have to get up there in a short time - when you're talking about a fire or a heart attack, seconds count," said Lee.

Ward 39 (Scarborough Agincourt) Councillor Mike Del Grande said he supported Cho as a fellow Scarborough councillor representing a ward north of Hwy. 401.

"For these three homes to have to sustain garbage trucks going through this road, that wasn't an issue because it suited the majority of Torontonians," said Del Grande. "Unfortunately, we allowed that bridge to deteriorate. We didn't spend a single plug dime on it. The balance here I don't think is fair."

For the most part, however, proponents of the bridge found little sympathy.

Ward 15 (Eglinton-Lawrence) Councillor Howard Moscoe said the city could simply purchase all three homes for less than it would cost to build a proper bridge.

Ward 33 (Don Valley East) Councillor Shelley Carroll said the community could take their case to the environmental assessment - but from the city's point of view, it made sense to go ahead.

"At the end of the day the environmental has to do its own work to determine which option makes the most sense all things considered, and the public's opinion has to be considered," she said. "These residents will now have the next 30 days to make their views known to the ministry of the environment. While this bridge deteriorates, it is time to help these residents move to the next step, and that is commenting to the minister of the environment."

Stan Poulton, who has lived in the affected area since 1964, said the councillors who voted to go ahead with the tear-down were out of touch with the community there.

But he said he and his neighbours would take the matter up with the environment ministry.

"We're quite simply not going to let them get away with it," he said.

"We're going to do every bloody thing we can to stall it and cancel it. Every other bridge around here has been replaced with no comments from everybody. They just want the bridge down so they can stop people from walking along the shores of the Rouge River. We have 307 signed petitions from the people who use this road and the bridge and want it kept open."