More land to be purchased along Hamilton LRT line - this time to make room for pedestrians

• By Shannon Broome-Bennett
• Posted Monday, Jun 24, 2024 10:29 am

More land to be purchased along Hamilton LRT line - this time to make room for pedestrians

The city would like more room for people, benches, trees and traffic-safety buffers along the 14-kilometre LRT route.

Hamilton’s light rail transit project needs more land — extra slivers from at least 122 properties — to make room for “public realm” improvements.

The 14-kilometre LRT has already spurred the purchase of more land than recent rapid transit projects in cities like Mississauga and Waterloo, mostly thanks to a relatively narrow municipal right-of-way along a route with dozens of sidewalk-hugging buildings.

Provincial project manager Metrolinx is well into the process of buying or expropriating around 90 buildings that are being knocked down for LRT, alongside 300 or so “partial” land takings like frontage slices or corner cuts.

Some of those partial takings will now be expanded to meet Hamilton’s evolving “complete streets” vision for the transit route along the Main, King and Queenston corridor, according to a new report going to city councillors May 23.

But none of those extra land acquisitions will result in more buildings being demolished, stressed Abdul Shaikh, the director of the city’s LRT office.

In an interview Friday, he said the extra space is being sought in areas where Metrolinx was already planning to take “slivers” of front lawns or parking areas. “We are just asking them to go a little bit beyond what they were initially taking,” he said.

Back when the city’s off-again, on-again project was first envisioned, the route design envisioned a pedestrian zone at least three metres wide — where possible — on each side of the street.

But that first iteration of LRT was cancelled abruptly by Ontario’s Tory government over budget concerns in 2019 and later resurrected in 2021 with $3.4 billion in construction funding shared by the province and federal Liberal government.

Shortly thereafter, the city approved a new “complete streets” manual that calls for a minimum pedestrian zone width of 4.75 metres — or wide enough to make room for people walking and using mobility devices, for street furniture and trees as well as a “buffer” area beside car traffic.

The report going to councillors next week says Metrolinx has since agreed to expand partial property takings where possible on 122 properties in an effort to add the extra space.

The report does not specify exactly which properties or areas along the route will see the additional land purchases or expropriations, but notes factors like proximity to LRT stops, schools and street-crossing locations were considered.

The wider pedestrian zone may also make it easier to plant or replace trees — a bonus for residents concerned by early plans to axe about 600 existing treesalong the transit route.

Shaikh also cautioned some areas of the LRT route are “very constrained” — for example on King Street through the downtown — so it will not be possible to create 4.75 metres of “public realm” space everywhere along the route. In some areas, even three metres will be a...[READ MORE]