Metrolinx abandons rail yard plan in Don Valley after local pushback

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Metrolinx has abandoned controversial plans to build a train storage facility in Toronto’s Don Valley, a move welcomed by opponents who argued the plan would damage the environment and hurt a rare piece of downtown parkland.

The provincial agency, which runs GO Transit, has said for years that this spot near the Don River was the only place that met its criteria for cleaning and fuelling commuter trains during the day. But it wouldn’t reveal the criteria, sparking accusations that the agency was sacrificing popular local green space for convenience.

“There was always an alternative,” said Tom Grydziuszko, a Don Valley supporter who came to love the area while working nearby. “By saying that, of course, that would be a way to end the conversation. Because if there’s no alternative, there’s no alternative, right?”

The Metrolinx proposal called for bringing back into use a rail spur that had been abandoned in 2007. Although a stone’s throw from the popular walking and biking path that runs up the valley, a decade-and-a-half of foliage growth meant the rusty tracks had largely blended into the parkland.

The layover plan would have required this greenery to be cut back. The tracks would have housed three trains parked in a row, stretching about a kilometre, with half of this distance on either side of the Bloor viaduct. There would be an access road alongside, a number of buildings and a small parking lot. All of it would be fenced in and lit for security.

In 2021, Metrolinx project leader Trevor Anderson told The Globe and Mail that this spot was the only place to put the trains. He said that agency staff weren’t able to find alternative sites farther north up the Don Valley and that other possible sites were earmarked for future development.

However, in a rare reversal for a transit agency facing pushback on multiple projects, Metrolinx announced this week that an alternative had in fact been found.

“Metrolinx will no longer pursue planning and design work for the layover facility originally planned for the Don Valley,” the agency said in an unsigned posting on its website. “The new proposed location is on the Richmond Hill GO Line, near York Mills Road and Leslie Street, and is in a light industrial area.”

Metrolinx said there was no one available to comment Thursday about the change of plans, responding instead with an excerpt from the online posting.

The agency has not given a timeline for how long it would take to design and build the facility at the new location. In the meantime, it says, trains will be stored for about four hours each weekday on a different rail line in the Don Valley in a fenced-off area wedged between the river and Bayview Avenue.

Advocates had long called for this line to be used as an alternative to the original location.

“It’s inaccessible parkland,” said Floyd Ruskin, with the advocacy group A Park for All. “It’s not going to interfere with wildlife migration, there are very few people that live along there.”

However, as pleased as he was by Metrolinx’s change of heart, Mr. Ruskin is keeping a wary eye on Ottawa’s plans for high-frequency intercity rail, which he worries could pose future threats to the valley. And Mr. Grydziuszko said it was time to bring in legal protections to prevent the old spur being revived for any active rail use.

“This particular battle is over, for the layover, however the tracks still belong to Metrolinx and until this becomes an officially designated park … we’re not done,” he said.

Editor’s note: In an earlier version of this story, Floyd Ruskin was incorrectly identified as being part of the advocacy group Don’t Mess with the Don. He no longer has an affiliation with that group.