28 November
2005
Ask CP Rail to Help Pay for Adelaide Overpass, Staff Urge
London - London should ask CP Rail to help pay for an overpass at Adelaide Street, where rail
delays of more than five minutes have become routine, city staff say.
In a report going to a city committee today, staff tagged an Adelaide project as the most pressing not yet begun.
"Adelaide Street is the most important location... along the CP rail corridor," staff wrote.
Earlier this year the city monitored key crossings for a week, finding on Adelaide 222 delays, of which 100 snarled traffic for more
than five minutes, the city's highest mark.
That suggests to staff CP Rail has been violating federal rules that prohibit shunting trains to block traffic for more than five
minutes.
"There are some major abuses to the five-minute rule," city transportation director Dave Leckie said yesterday.
Two years ago, CP asked a regulator, the Canadian Transportation Agency, to relax the rule, but the city opposed the move and prevailed.
Staff who videotaped the crossing for a week could use that to pinpoint violations, but haven't done so.
Nor should they, said Leckie, since aggressive action by the city could kill talks of an overpass before they begin.
"I don't think its appropriate," he said.
But Ward 2 Coun. Joni Baechler thinks aggressive action may have the opposite effect, pushing CP Rail to agree to pay some of the costs
of an overpass.
The city's findings are based on criteria that appear to borrow heavily from those used two years ago in a series of Free Press
articles that found Londoners die waiting for paramedics blocked by trains and motorists wait more than 440,000 hours a year for trains
to pass, a huge burden on the local economy.
Multiplying the number of stopped vehicles by the duration of each delay, the city found 228 hours of delay each week at Adelaide, the
worst in the city and nearly double that of a site where the city has bought land for an overpass at Hale and Trafalgar streets.
The city also was told by paramedics that Adelaide was a pressing concern, especially since trains there slowed them taking children
and trauma victims to Victoria Hospital.
The CN line, which includes Hale-Trafalgar, has enough well-spaced over and underpasses.
Staff also found Adelaide was the most important cross-city route impeded by trains, while Hale-Trafalgar
ranked at the bottom.
Despite those findings, staff concluded Hale-Trafalgar remained the top priority, edging out Adelaide, largely on the
basis of two factors: safety and impact on other crossings.
While Hale-Trafalgar has had fewer collisions than Adelaide, it's also had two fatalities, both involving people walking
or cycling around closed gates.
The presence of two active lines there heightens the dangers, Leckie said.
The city used two of eight measure to gauge safety.
"I don't have a problem with safety weighing disproportionately heavily," Leckie said.
The report also asserted an overpass at Adelaide would reduce delays west of the CN yard as far as Colborne Street, a contention
disputed two years ago by a CN official.
Leckie acknowledged comparing rail crossings was both difficult and subjective.
"I do think it's a close call between Adelaide and Hale, but the bottom line is we have funding for Hale and that kind of tips the
scales," he said.
The city has been promised $2 million each from Ontario and CN but nothing from Ottawa and won't begin construction unless all parties
share more equitably in total costs projected at $12.8 million.
Former city politician Sandy Levin, a member of the transportation advisory committee, questioned the report after reviewing it
yesterday.
It appears for two of eight criteria, Hale received a higher score than the data and analysis suggest.
"One might wonder if the report was written to support a conclusion that was predetermined," Levin said. But it might make
sense for the city to build overpasses on Hale and Adelaide rather than get mired in debate, he said.
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