The Mon Sheong Foundation and other groups opposing the McNicoll bus garage in northwest Scarborough will bring their arguments to the Toronto Board of Health on Monday, Nov. 17.
The TTC’s plans for a facility to service buses on a seven-acre property near McNicoll Avenue and Kennedy Road has angered neighbours, including Mon Sheong, which operates a 160-bed long-term-care home, and a seniors residence with 400 residents, beside the site.
The charity, along with Coalition Against TTC McNicoll Bus Garage, says the area is part of a "growing seniors corridor" where the movement and storage of 250 TTC buses pose health and safety risks for older residents.
The buses will disturb the sleep of elderly people at Mon Sheong and other nearby buildings, fumes will affect their "sensitive respiration" and the Kennedy intersection will become dangerous for seniors, Mon Sheong says in task force findings released last month.
City council in August requested the TTC consult Toronto Public Health "regarding community health impacts of the project," and Scarborough Centre Councillor Michael Thompson asked the board to hear views on the issue Monday.
In proposals released this week, however, Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 113, said the TTC should accelerate scheduling for the project, tendering in early 2015 so the garage can open in 2018.
The city’s transit commission "desperately needs more space to store and maintain buses. Waiting several more years to even start construction of the next bus garage will have a big impact on the commission around goals of improving service and therefore work should begin immediately," the union says in a report, Toronto’s Transit Future.
The report also said another bus garage and expansions to existing TTC garages will be needed even after McNicoll is built.
Jim Karygiannis, elected as the area’s city councillor last month, has said stopping the McNicoll project will be one of his top goals.