Public transit is supposed to be the greener way. But the Eglinton Crosstown LRT isn’t green enough, say community groups in Weston and Mount Dennis.

They want Metrolinx, the provincial agency in charge of building the Crosstown, to reconsider building a natural gas-fired power plant at the Mount Dennis LRT terminus.

The community doesn’t object to putting a hydro plant on the old Kodak lands, where the light rail vehicle maintenance and storage facility is to be built. It just wants the province to look at greener technology, said Simon Chamberlain, of the Mount Dennis Community Association.

“If you think about it in terms of the Paris (climate) discussions, back here at the provincial level, we’ve got a golden opportunity to put more solar power in, which is being ignored, and a decision being made to put in a fossil fuel power generating station, however small. It doesn’t seem to add up,” he said.

Residents have been monitoring Crosstown developments closely for years. Until December, however, they had no inkling that the gas-fired plant was to be included in the project. It was unveiled at a public open house by Crosslinx Transit Solutions, the construction consortium hired by Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario for the $9.1-billion plan to build and maintain the line.

The Mount Dennis group, along with The 12, a group of Ward 12 residents, and Blue Green Canada, a coalition of labour and environmental groups, have written to the province requesting a cleaner power source.

The gas-powered plant would be significantly smaller than those cancelled by the Ontario Liberal government in Oakville and Mississauga before the 2011 provincial election, said Chamberlain.

“We just want to make sure that the thing’s been properly thought through. When the whole environmental assessment process has happened and no mention of any sort of power plant has been part of that process ... has due diligence really been done? Why wasn’t it in the public eye? And what about the alternatives?” he said.

Chamberlain said residents have been dismayed by the overall lack of green innovation in the Crosstown. Solar panels are being used on private buildings nearby. The Kodak site would be ideal for them, but they aren’t in the plan, says a letter from the community groups to MPP Laura Albanese (York South-Weston).

She has already passed on their concerns to Environment Minister Glen Murray and Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca. Albanese said she expects at the very least there will be more public consultation.

“We’re not prepared to be bulldozed,” said Rick Ciccarelli, a community activist, who notes that the Crosstown, the Union Pearson Express and GO Transit will all stop in the area.

“We want to see people have a conversation about the alternatives. If there is going to be more development in this community in terms of a mobility hub, it makes sense to do more energy planning. Nobody’s done that,” he said.

The gas-fired plant would probably only be used a “handful” of times a year as a back-up generator, according to Metrolinx.

It would have the capacity to run the entire Crosstown system to avoid peak demand times on the provincial power grid and save about 40 per cent on the price of electricity. It would also generate enough power to run the entire Crosstown system in a power outage, said a spokesman for the agency.

“Alternatives like fuel cells have been suggested but would not provide the kind of power source needed to even minimally support the future transit line or the maintenance and storage facility. Fuel cells are neither feasible or practical,” he said.

The upfront costs for a greener technology would probably be significantly higher, said Greg Allen, an engineer who specializes in sustainable technology. But if the government considered life cycle expenses, the alternatives might make more economic sense, he said.

Allen, who has looked at the Mount Dennis plan, thinks the project should consider power storage technologies such as vanadium redox batteries.

There is always excess capacity in the system, he said. It makes sense to capture that.

“Is it saddling the public with more expense, or is it a revenue generator?” he said.

“When the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining, you can call on these storage facilities to put power back in the system. It’s very common in Europe,” said Allen, who notes that the natural gas plant would be sitting idle most of the time.

“We ought not to be spending public dollars at all on anything that resembles a carbon emitter,” he said.

Before the Mount Dennis gas-fired plant can proceed, it will have to be approved by the city and the province. City council has directed staff to meet with Metrolinx and Toronto Hydro to review the capacity needs and the backup power plan.

It has also asked for a Mount Dennis community plan to be expedited, said Fernando Carou, of Toronto’s Environment and Energy Division. That report would look at how conservation initiatives could be married to the area’s growth and land use.

Carou expects to report back to council in the first half of the year.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

-

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Crosstown connections

The western terminus for the Crosstown LRT will serve as a mobility hub, connecting various transit forms in the same way as Union Station.

The designs are not yet final. But the route from a 15-bus bay TTC terminal to the LRT would include walking down a flight of stairs, travelling about 100 metres and then down a second flight of stairs. The GO transfer to the LRT would be similar. All the connections would be indoors and accessible with elevators. The Union Pearson Express station is integrated with GO.

Maintenance yard

The 23-hectare Kodak site was originally planned only as the location of the maintenance and storage facility, and that will still be part of the plan, accommodating up to 76 light rail vehicles.

But Metrolinx bowed to community pressure over the site’s historical significance and incorporated some retail into the basement and main floor of the old Kodak building. It is being renovated to conform with its designation by the city as a Heritage Interest building.

Power plans

A natural-gas fired power plant will be at the northwest corner of the site. It will be 25 metres wide, 62 metres long and 9 metres tall.

Residents say they were told the plant will be part of the first phase of construction. They would like that changed so there is more time to discuss potentially greener solutions. Community groups are also asking the province and Metrolinx to reconsider adding solar panels. The Crosstown maintenance and storage facility “has the potential to support the largest rooftop solar project in North America,” say the groups.

Crosstown timeline

The Crosstown is now scheduled to open in 2021. It will run east from Mount Dennis to Kennedy Station, with 25 stations, and the central portion running in a tunnel under Eglinton.

Tunnel-boring machines are burrowing east toward Yonge St. from Eglinton West Station and west from near Brentcliffe Rd. to Yonge.

The LRT will connect with the subway there and at Eglinton West, where the TTC board has voted to change the station name to Cedarvale.

Read more about: