Bury the Ontario Line - Save South Riverdale

We urgently need your help to fight a looming threat to the well-being of the people in our neighbourhood.

Save Jimmie Simpson is partnering with the South Riverdale Community Health Centre to commission a Health Impact Assessment (HIA). This study is being conducted by Ronald Macfarlane, a renowned environmental health expert, and it will explore what public health risks may be associated with the above ground vs. underground Ontario Line, which Metrolinx refuses to even consider.

This study is significant as it will present evidence that policymakers cannot dismiss, plus fill the gaps in Metrolinx’s totally inadequate environmental assessment. We hope to complete the HIA well before the ‘early works’ construction so that its findings may be reflected in the final Ontario Line design.

The money we raise will help pay for:
- Costs of the HIA
- Any additional quantitative work required (namely, noise and vibration studies either substandard or entirely missing from Metrolinx’s environmental assessment)
- Public and policymaker education once the HIA is completed
- Communicating the results to build public awareness and pressure Metrolinx to take our concerns seriously.

Our group has managed to do a lot of excellent community education and advocacy using the time and expertise of its volunteer members; but we need our friends and neighbours to assist us financially in this David versus Goliath battle. 

Because we are an advocacy organization that takes political stands, we are unable to access charitable donations. If there are excess funds at the end of our campaign, we will donate them to local community centres such as Ralph Thornton Community Centre and South Riverdale Community Health Centre.

Save Jimmie Simpson (www.savejimmiesimpson.ca) is a grassroots group fighting to save our community from the negative health, environmental and social impacts of a massive increase in the frequency of above-ground trains running through the heart of our neighbourhood.

Background
Metrolinx is determined to build a section of the new Ontario Line above ground, bulldozing through a neighbourhood of schools, seniors’ residences, private homes, social housing, small businesses, playgrounds, community centres and parks. If allowed to proceed it will cause irreparable harm. The addition of the Ontario Line to the existing above-ground GO-train and VIA tracks could ultimately mean close to 1,000 more trains passing through every day and a 7-metre tall noise wall, 2km long, permanently dividing our community in half.

The local community is strongly in favour of public transit expansion, but not at the needless cost of wrecking a lively, diverse neighbourhood. Apart from the general disruption and serious ecological damage, the health impacts of building this line above ground in terms of noise, vibration and air pollution are horrifying to contemplate.

Nevertheless, despite the community’s and Toronto City Council’s repeated calls to bury the line, Metrolinx is pushing ahead in disregard of local concerns and without giving consideration to a viable alternative plan that would route the Ontario Line underground.

An important part of our strategy to get the Ontario Line buried is to highlight the project’s serious negative human health impacts, which Metrolinx continues to ignore. Health Canada has criticized the Metrolinx plan for its failure to look at “human health risks” and the “potential for cumulative effects on human health.”

If Metrolinx thinks human health impacts are inconsequential, we do not.