Volunteers want LRT plan back on track - Toronto Sun

Anthony Perruzza was standing in the cold so other people won’t have to.The Ward 8 councillor along with over 20 other volunteers went door-to-door in the Finch Ave. area Saturday collecting signatures to put back on track the light rail transit that was planned for their neighbourhood.“We’re conducting a campaign to try and make a little noise because we need to save (the LRT),” Perruzza said to a resident who took a few minutes to listen to his pitch.“It’s so important for this community, otherwise I wouldn’t be here on such a cold day.”The light rail on Finch was supposed to be an 18-km line running from Hwy. 27 to Yonge St.Mayor Rob Ford has been criticized since announcing the end of Transit City, a move that derailed the LRT that was in the plans of former mayor David Miller.“We can’t sit back and let them undertake these decisions without wrestling up some support locally,” Perruzza said.“(The Finch Ave. W. bus route) carries some 40,000 plus people daily and it’s just not working. We were hoping that we were going to start construction this year and now we don’t know what’s happening with it,” he said.“(Ford is) going to find that he’s going to really peev off a lot of these communities and a lot of these neighbourhoods that supported him.”The mayor won’t have to look far for frustration.“It’s really overcrowded and then what happens because of traffic you’ll see three buses lined up waiting to go and two of them will get filled and one will be empty,” said Vanessa Hunt, vice-president of campus life at York University.“Then there will be no bus along the line for 45 minutes, and people are stuck in the cold waiting,” she said after a couple hours of door-knocking.The canvassers finished with 200 signatures.Hunt said that she got a lot of mixed reactions when speaking with people about the LRT, but the most common response was concern.“A gentleman who lived in a house with some people and has lived in the area for awhile said, ‘everytime something great is supposed to happen in this area they shut it down and I’m tired of it,’” Hunt said.Finch can expect to see a lot more of their ward councillor in the future, Perruzza said.“As the weather warms up we’re going to be talking to more and more people about it. It’s a big deal for us and a big initiative,” he [email protected]://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2011/02/19/17341081.html