

Codi Wilson, CP24.com





The closure of a parking lot at Wilson Station is upsetting some drivers who commute into the city for work.

TTC spokesperson Brad Ross told CP24 Thursday that the lot, located at 75 Billy Bishop Way, was declared surplus land a few years ago and Build Toronto has opted to build a shopping centre on the land.

On Thursday, barricades went up to prevent drivers from parking there.

“It’s going to take me an hour now to get to work. I’m obviously going to be late,” one commuter told CP24 at the parking lot on Thursday morning.

Ross said the transit agency has been working to get the message out about the closure for the last few months.

Build Toronto President and CEO Bill Bryck said signs were placed at the lot well in advance of the closure.

"We have been working very closely with the TTC over the last number of years to schedule the closing of the lot. We actually worked with the local councillor to ensure that more advanced notice was put up. So signs have been up for the last 60 days," he told CP24.

But some drivers have reported that signs were not posted at other commuter lots in the area, which became flooded with more cars after this morning’s closure.

Build Toronto spokesperson Natalie Pastuszak said that while they did not place signage at other lots in the area, signs were placed around Wilson Station.

To make matters worse, the completion date for a project that was supposed to bring 1,100 new parking spots to Yorkdale Station last year has been pushed back to February 2017.

Another issue, Bryck said, is the delayed opening of the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension.

"Twenty-eight hundred new parking spots are opening at the end of the York-Spadina Subway Extension up in Vaughan," he said, adding that 70 per cent of the commuters that use the Billy Bishop Way lot are from Vaughan and Woodbridge

The subway extension is now scheduled to open in December 2017, one year later than what was initially planned.

“We did delay the closing of this parking lot a number of times," Bryck said. "But we had contractual commitments with tenants that were going to open up their stores there next year and eventually, we just had to move on because the tenants could no longer wait for construction."