The city is stepping in to help businesses adversely affected by the construction of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT.

At a press conference at the Maria A. Shchuka library near Eglinton Ave. West and Dufferin St. Friday, Mayor John Tory and Councillor Josh Colle announced a series of measures to support business owners, some of whom have been grappling with disruptions since 2013, when work on the transit project began.

“While the Eglinton West community has advocated for higher order transit here for a long time, construction is difficult. It’s difficult for businesses. It’s difficult for residents,” said Colle (Ward 15 Eglinton-Lawrence), who represents a two-kilometre stretch of Eglinton West and moved a council motion last year directing the city to find ways to help local retailers.

He predicted the Crosstown will “transform” the area by the time it’s complete, and called the project was “long overdue.”

“But we must continue to support businesses and communities between now and the opening of the new line.”

The initiatives announced Friday include a discount of $6 off at all city-owned parking spaces within 200 metres of Eglinton between Jane St. and Don Mills Rd., which is enough to provide two hours free parking at most spots. Drivers can access the discount by entering the code “Crosstown” in the Green P app.

The city is also undertaking a cleaning blitz of the corridor, and is allocating $100,000 to help businesses enhance their online presence, and perform economic scans to determine how to attract customers.

The city’s measures are in addition to initiatives already launched by Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency for the GTHA, which is building the Crosstown. Among other things, Metrolinx is giving $10,000 a year to business improvement areas (BIAs) on Eglinton to be used to stimulate economic activity, and has launched advertising campaigns to draw people to the area.

At a cost of $5.3 billion, the LRT is among the largest construction projects in the country. When it’s complete in 2021, it will deliver higher-order transit to a historically underserved area. But, in the meantime, work to build new stations has snarled traffic and left many storefronts obscured behind construction hoarding.

Aadila Valiallah, the co-ordinator for the York-Eglinton BIA, said retailers have suffered a“complete loss of business” and she knows of at least 12 stores that have closed since last summer.

She called the city’s offer of free parking “puzzling,” because so many parking spaces have been removed from the area, including an entire Green P lot that was taken out.

“I’m a little bit puzzled about how they’re going to help businesses by paying for parking; there is no parking to pay for,” she said.

But she conceded there’s no silver bullet the city could use to alleviate the construction problems.

Orville Smith, a community advocate who is pushing the city to preserve Eglinton’s Little Jamaica neighbourhood by supporting Caribbean-owned businesses, said free parking and beautification efforts could be effective. But he called on the city to do better at engaging local residents in plans for Eglinton’s future.

“The people, our representatives of the community, must be at the dining table of making these decisions, from a community and cultural perspective,” he said.

Some in the neighbourhood have criticized the city for responding quickly to King St. business owners who said their bottom line had been hurt by the new streetcar pilot project downtown, while waiting years to launch similar measures on Eglinton West, a less affluent area.

With the mayor’s support, the city announced free parking near King two months after the pilot began, following high-profile complaints by restaurateurs in the theatre district.

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Mayor Tory said he had been paying attention to the plight of Eglinton businesses, but stepped in when it was clear that the business supports Metrolinx had put in place “were not enough.”

“So we came to do more. One could argue with almost anything we do: ‘why didn’t you do it sooner?’ And that’s a valid question. But we’re here today. We’re announcing … new measures that are going to, I hope, help these businesses get through what is about three more years of construction.”

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