Saying they’ve been left behind in London’s rapid transit plan, some downtown business owners are warning it will be a disaster for the core.

As the $560-million plan to speed public transit using fast buses heads to a public information session Thursday, many core merchants vow they’ll be there, hoping their voices will be heard.

“We just want an opportunity to be involved,” said Jill Wilcox, owner of the Jill’s Table kitchen store on King Street, who plans to attend the meeting.

“Every businessperson I’ve talked to, and I’ve talked to quite a few people in the last few days, nobody has been consulted,” Wilcox said. “So there’s a real concern about that.”

Wilcox and other King Street businesses are sounding the alarm over a proposed plan to add two transit lanes — one westbound, the other eastbound — to the now-one-way street in the downtown area.

The move will eliminate street parking and turning lanes, choking traffic and deterring customers from coming to the area, they say.

Under a plan approved by council last spring, downtown London would become the hub for a 24-kilometre system of high-frequency buses that would run along L- and 7-shaped corridors bisecting the city.

The corridors would run north to Masonville Place, east to Fanshawe College, south to White Oaks Mall and west to Wonderland Road and Oxford Street.

Regular London Transit bus routes would serve as feeders to the four main rapid transit corridors.

While the proposal has been widely debated at city hall, street-level questions and concerns persist in the city’s core, an area crucial to rapid transit’s success.

Many of the tenants at the downtown Covent Garden Market plan to be at Thursday’s meeting, said Bob Usher, the market’s general manager.

With hundreds of people parking in the market’s underground parking lot daily, adding rapid transit lanes to King Street would create traffic chaos, especially after sports events and concerts at the nearby Budweiser Gardens, he said.

“Over 50 per cent of our revenue comes from parking,” Usher said Wednesday.

“If that goes away . . . not only do we lose our consumer for upstairs (in the market), but we also lose our ability to be able to fund the building in a manner that is prudently wise.”

Restaurateurs with patios say they fear the constant bus traffic whipping by would put a knife in their outdoor business.

Then, there’s the construction, which is projected to take years to complete.

“Is the end result worth the pain that you’re about to go through? Because you are going to annihilate a lot of businesses around here,” said David E. White, owner of a high-end men’s clothing store on Richmond Street.

“The process will cost a lot of us our livelihoods.”

Like many downtown business owners, White said he isn’t against rapid transit, but has concerns about the proposal for the core.

“You will have a beautiful transit system, but you’ve left a ghost town,” he predicted.

The rapid transit system would be the largest infrastructure project in the city’s history.

City hall has committed about $130 million, largely from development charges, and is waiting for Ottawa and Queen’s Park to commit the rest, a combined $435 million.

“We all do want a good transportation system for the city. That’s certainly something everyone’s in agreement on,” Wilcox said.

“It just needs to be a well-thought out one.”

Coun. Phil Squire, who heads up a group of politicians and community members examining the transit plan, said many businesspeople are concerned about their futures given the upheaval the proposed system will cause.

“And they should be concerned,” he said, because the plan, including the proposed tunnel along part of Richmond Street, will have “serious repercussions, including business failures. There’s no question that’s going to happen.

“That’s one of the things I’m really glad people are starting to talk about,” he said. “Is the tunnel, is everything we’re doing, the right thing to do at this particular time?

“We’re all in favour of rapid transit or some improvement in transit, but the real issue is what are the best routes and what is the best way to do it?”

dcarruthers@postmedia.com

twitter.com/DaleatLFPress

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IF YOU GO

What: Rapid transit pubic meeting

When: Thursday, 5-8 p.m.

Where: London Central Library