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If Ramsay wants rapid transit, its residents and businesses must make a decision: which side of its busiest street should be sacrificed?

It’s an unusually stark choice confronting those living and working around 11th Street S.E. And the city needs to know soon, because it intends to nail down by October the final alignment for the future southeast LRT and its precursor, the bus-only transitway that crews will start building in 2017.

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For years, the city had planned an option with less impact on the neighbourhood. As the train/bus route leaves the Ramsay escarpment and heads south toward Crossroads Market and beyond, the original plan had it following an S-curve along Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railway right-of-way and leave 11th Street — and most buildings along it — nearly unscathed.

But in part because of CP’s recent reluctance to part with land in that busy stretch, the city is now recommending the bus and train line go straight down 11th, either elevated or next to the traffic lanes that handle about 10,000 cars daily. Any of those options will require the city to acquire and possibly demolish many of the properties on the street’s west side, a row that includes a bridal shop, small offices and the Shamrock Hotel.