Just got back from the meeting.
There was a good mix of people there, although it was typically dominated by seniors as most meetings are.
Upon arrival they had a sort of initial discussion with the boards placed around the lobby of the old Scarborough City Centre, with TTC, City, and AECOM staff there to answer questions. There were boards set up on large tables with every possible alignment, and little sticky notes so that people could write comments and stick them on the alignment map. Many were concerned with possible station locations, etc. There were also several boards where you could stick general comments.
At around 7:15 they called everyone into the old Scarborough City Council chambers to a presentation by Tim Laspa, who seems to be the head of the transportation side of the city planning department. He gave a quick presentation on the project so far after De Baermaeker made a little speech about Tory's support for the project and how he personally brought the Scarborough subway to the city after many years of work, and other self boosting speech remarks. Laspa explained the corridors that will be looked at, the scope of the work, when what parts of the project will be worked on and discussed, etc. Then the question period came. Oh, question periods at a public meeting. Always fun and joy.
The first couple of questions were surprisingly on point. The first guy asks if they will consider ridership in the different corridors. Laspa says yes. Person after him asks if they have "A blank chequebook" for the design, or if they will take cost into account. Laspa says that cost will be a factor in corridor selection. Next person asks about how much a station costs. TTC rep standing at the back of the room answers between $100 and $225 million.
Then fun began when someone finally stood up, and started on about the LRT. Started accusing Laspa over something he has no control over, and asks a loaded question that De Baermaeker eventually answers for him, as it was something related to council involvement and why council themselves weren't designing a $3 billion dollar subway line.
Next guy up gives some resounding thank you for building subways to "deserving and ignored scarborough". Isn't even a question, more of a statement.
Next guy. Begins discussing how he was talking to Ex-Mayor David Crombie (only refers to him as Ex-Mayor once, just calls him Mayor the rest of the time), who supports the LRT. Starts demanding why they aren't building an LRT. Laspa quickly shoots him down on his claim that the subway will be underused and that the LRT will carry more people (It won't, subway will be busier and has sufficient use levels to justify a subway).
Last guy gets really angry, starts calling councillors names and screaming. Laspa interrupts, tells him to calm down, and decides to end the question session and send us out for some more consultation with the people hanging out in the lobby with the presentation boards.
People start to mill about again, adding more details to the presentations than what they added before the presentation. Questions are answered, seems to be generally positive. One pro-LRT guy still doesn't seem to get that the meeting isn't to debate the two technologies, starts getting angry at an AECOM engineer. Starts getting angry as to why they don't have any details on the different corridors as it pertains to ridership, cost, etc., despite having already been told that it will be coming at the next meeting. Overheard someone say "Vaughan is getting a subway and they have 300,000 people, why can't scarborough get one when they have 600,000". Overheard Jim Karygiannis swearing about something while talking to a couple of other people who I didn't recognize.
I then left to trek it back downtown. There was snow drifting into the SRT, the thing was screeching loud. Nobody got on or off between Scarborough Centre and Kennedy. There was snow blowing through the badly sealed doors. Midland Station reeked of chemicals like it always does due to the nearby chemical plant. One can certainly get the feeling as to why so many in scarborough reject the current situation and demand a subway.
