MiltonSearch.com blog

Patricia Eales will take a petition of 8,000 names to a GO Transit board meeting next week. She wants partial refunds when trains are 20 minutes late.

Oakville rider who began online petition criticizing rail service has become a powerful voice for change

They’re late for work and late coming home to pick up the kids from daycare.

Now GO riders are going to be charged more for what many are calling “atrocious” and “abysmal” service, says an Oakville woman who has become the voice of frustrated commuters across the region.

Pat Eales will take an 8,000-name online petition to the March 14 meeting of the GO board of directors. She plans to ask the board to postpone the fare increase planned for March 15 until GO can run its trains on time.

“Most of the people I rode the trains with, we felt our complaints were being dropped into a bottomless bucket. Now at least people think there’s a collective voice,” said Eales yesterday.

The petition asks GO to refund 50 per cent of fares when trains are late by 20 minutes or more, and to provide better notification of delays.

“We don’t mind paying a good fare for a good service. Just give us good service,” she said.

Eales started the petition Feb. 11, after train delays made her late arriving to work five days in a row, at a job she’d only started in November.

A busy single mother, Eales says an earlier train would put her at the office more than an hour ahead of her start time, but she wouldn’t be able to leave early.

Driving doesn’t make sense because by the time she learns of delays, she’s usually on the train platform, having paid her fare.

“There are obviously people who agree with her,” said GO spokesperson Stephanie Sorensen. “GO and the board are taking her concerns very seriously.”

The transit agency reported that 83 per cent of its trains ran on time last year, down from about 90 per cent in 2006.

Although it’s adding 27 faster locomotives that can pull an extra two cars, that won’t have an impact until later this year, after crews are trained and platforms lengthened throughout the system.

The only new locomotive running so far is temporarily assigned to the Lakeshore line.

Twelve-car trains that can accommodate an additional 300 people each won’t be in service until the summer and will be brought onto the Milton line first, Sorensen said.

Eales’s petition has helped “because now people are paying attention to the situation,” said Oakville MPP Kevin Flynn, who has persuaded Queen’s Park to appoint a customer service expert to a vacancy on the GO board.

“We need somebody who knows how to deal with people. We need somebody at the decision-making level looking at this through a customer service lens,” he said.

“You can’t have an economy the size of Toronto’s and not have a good train system. It doesn’t make any sense.

“If you look at any other jurisdiction around the world, it’s just not optional,” said Flynn.

– By Tess Kalinowski, Transportation Reporter for the Toronto Star

UPDATE: GO SAYS NO 11,000 TIMES

Board refuses to grant fare rebates for delayed trains despite petition from dissatisfied riders

They listened, but Pat Eales isn’t convinced GO Transit’s board of directors heard the deafening hue and cry of frustrated commuters demanding better service and a refund when trains are late.

“They just kept bringing up the same old excuses – the weather, the switches – and that it wasn’t their fault,” the Oakville mother of two said after tabling copies of an online petition at yesterday’s board meeting, supported by almost 11,000 dissatisfied riders.

The petition called for a 50 per cent refund on fares when trains are delayed 20 minutes or more. Eales also asked the board to freeze fare hikes until trains run as scheduled.

But her requests fell on deaf ears. A 15-cent-per-ride fare increase on a single adult ticket goes into effect today. Board chair Peter Smith confirmed there will be no refunds, something he said would spell disaster for the system in the throes of a major expansion.

GO Transit relies on the fare box for operating funds, so essentially riders themselves would be picking up the cost of the refunds.

Eales, however, did walk away with assurances that an advisory board will be established to handle service and reliability issues.

Smith later invited Eales to join that committee. She hasn’t yet decided if she will.

A plan for an improved communication system to advise riders of cancellations and delays was also approved.

During her presentation, Eales called on the board to fix glitches, even those that are out of its control. Tracks, switches and crews are under the jurisdiction of CN and CP, which own the rails GO uses.

“Stop thanking us for our patience and apologizing for any inconvenience you may have caused us. `Sorry’ doesn’t help when we are late for work or late home at night.”

Eales, a single mother of two teens who lives in Bronte, told the Star her patience with the transit system ran out in February after GO problems made her late five days in a row for her new job as an executive assistant at a not-for-profit academic research centre. She had tried emailing GO Transit authorities to complain about the system but got the run-around. She filled out a ridership survey but no one contacted her.

Unless the system becomes more reliable, she warned the board, transit users will get back into their cars.

Eales urged riders to take advantage of the “silent rebate” available at the customer service kiosk at Union Station. Staff offer vouchers when riders complain about late or cancelled trains.

With ridership increasing by 10,000 a day over last year, “we’re the victims of our own success,” Smith said in response, noting that improvements are on the horizon to ease the crunch.

About 170,000 people ride the trains on a typical weekday. “We don’t have the capacity on our trains or lines,” he said. “We’re building that capacity, but it takes a long time.”

Frances Chung, GO’s director of financial services, reported on major work underway to improve the aging signal and switching system. A 33-kilometre third track is being built on the Lakeshore corridor from Hamilton to Oshawa to increase capacity and reduce delays. New locomotives capable of pulling 12 cars are coming on board, as are new bi-level coaches. Crew staffing is also being increased.

Eales’ petition is to go to the Ontario Legislature next week.

– by Leslie Ferenc of the Toronto Star

Highway crews can’t keep up with intense freeze-thaw cycle

The 400 series of Ontario highways looks more like a series of bumps and road holes these days, but the transportation ministry blames the weather and says crews are working as hard as they can.

“We’ve had some very severe freeze-thaw cycles this year,” said ministry spokesperson Will MacKenzie.

Rather than set a specific budget for pothole patching, the ministry folds that expense into the long-term contracts signed with companies responsible for general maintenance of the highways in their areas.

MacKenzie said one series of storms was so intense this winter, that crews hadn’t yet finished clearing one snowfall when the one next hit, leaving no time for pothole repairs.

Even so, the contractors are patrolling the highways round the clock, every day of the week, on the lookout for heaved asphalt, road debris and other problems, MacKenzie said.

He said one 401 stretch is in especially bad shape – the eastbound lanes just west of Milton, from Kelso Lake to Guelph Line.

“We’re trying to get out there to grind off the top layer of pavement” to replace the pitted surface, he said.

“The pavement in that particular location is about 14 years old.”

But there’s an epidemic of road craters all through southern Ontario “because of the severe freeze-thaw cycles we’ve been going through,” he said.

“They’re getting out to them as quickly as they can.”

OPP Sgt. Cam Woolley said that he has also noticed the severe rash of potholes on important highways, but he chalks it up to a difficult winter.

He said he hasn’t heard of a bad accident that was caused by a pothole but “I remember one so bad it knocked the hubcaps off one of the police cars.”

In such extreme cases, the ministry crews are “pretty vigilant about making repairs quickly,” he said.

Motorists can file a complaint about a nasty pothole or general road conditions by calling 1-800-268-4686.

– By Joanna Smith of the Toronto Star

The following post is by Mike Cluett. Please visit Mike Cluett’s Milton blog site here:

At this point, Milton doesn’t have all day GO Train service to Toronto with only a few trains in the morning and a few in the evening. Many of the commuters that use the Milton station come from outside the area in Cambridge, Guelph and northern parts of Oakville and Burlington. The provincial government recently announced a large investment in GO Train services of $100 million dollars.

Unfortunately none of those dollars have made it to Milton…

To continue reading this column, go to Mike Cluett’s Milton Blog.

The following post is by Mike Cluett. Please visit Mike Cluett’s Milton blog site here:

As many of you know, its about this time of year when the Town of Milton council sits down and decides how much money they need to pay for the services they provide. It’s also a well known fact that Milton has one of the lower tax rates in the GTA, which is what makes Milton a choice for many people to live.

Last week on December 10th and 11th, the council sat down to hammer out the town staff’s proposal for the budget. What came out of it was rather shocking.

After “long deliberations” the council had decided on a 6.6% increase in our taxes for 2008. This means a homeowner with a property value of $ 300,000 will have an increase on their bill of over $45 for residential and roughly $37 for rural.

Keep in mind the rate of inflation is hovering at 2.5% for this year.

Why such a huge increase? In recent articles appearing in the Milton Canadian Champion, you will see the highlights (or low-lights if you so choose) of the budget deliberations on the 10th and 11th.

The budget initially had an increase of 4 full time firefighters for the Milton Fire Department but Ward 2 Councillor Greg Nelson made a case for just one more saying “Four says we got the message — five says we care.”

A little on the dramatic side and it worked as the changes were approved…

To continue reading this column, go to Mike Cluett’s Milton Blog.

The following post is by Mike Cluett. Please visit Mike Cluett’s Milton blog site here:

I was getting ready to go to the last official meeting of the Milton 150th Anniversary committee around 6:30pm when I heard some weird sounds and then a smash.

“Oh no, not again” I thought and hoped for the best as I made my way to the front porch.

So much for hoping.

There was another accident at Yates Drive and March Crossing last night between 2 vehicles. One coming out of March Crossing turning east towards Bennett and the other travelling on Yates towards Bennett. One driver was taking her family to the Hawthorne Village PS Holiday sing-a-long when, according to her, the car came through the stop sign and hit her on the drivers side front wheel, causing some significant damage….

To continue reading this column, go to Mike Cluett’s Milton Blog.

Milton’s making a list … The Santa Claus parade was taking too long, so organizers barred politicians from marching.

The good townsfolk of Milton may have bitten off more than they can chew when it comes to tomorrow’s Santa Claus parade.

Town organizers decided this year to eliminate three levels of politicians from the beloved event which routinely draws as many as 20,000 people to the streets of Milton.

“The committee decided that for this year’s parade the only politician we’d have would be Mayor Gordon Krantz from Milton,” explained Mike Ricker, secretary treasurer of the parade committee which is made up of volunteers.

The reason wasn’t political, Ricker insists, but rather one of expediency. The parade was simply taking too long so the committee decided to cut it down, eliminating some of the politicians as well as limiting the number of entries to 70.

Little did the organizers know that their decision would prompt the ire of their federal Liberal MP, Garth Turner, who is threatening to disobey the committee and walk in the parade anyway.

“His idea is he’s the federal MP for this area and he’s going to be in the parade,” said Ricker. “I understand he plans to walk with his dog in the parade.”

Turner was too busy to comment yesterday about being chopped from the parade and of his plans to crash it anyway. His staff said he was in back-to-back meetings all day.

But Milton residents remain steadfast in their decision and are prepared for any contingency should Turner show up, with or without his dog.

“We have a plan, but I would rather not say what we’ve prepared,” Ricker said.

Still the whole fracas has left Ricker scratching his head. “We were looking at the parade in general and asking what do people come out to see – the parade, the floats, the band and Santa Claus.”

It was clear to them residents certainly weren’t coming to see the politicians, said Ricker.

The only reason Milton’s mayor is still in the parade is because the town gave organizers $10,000 to cover some safety concerns and because the parade uses the town’s facilities and streets.

And while provincial MPP Ted Chudleigh is disappointed he won’t be participating in tomorrow’s parade, he understands the organizers’ motives.

“I have been in the parade for 12 or 13 years,” said Chudleigh. “It’s a great time to walk down Main St. and wave and say Merry Christmas and it’s fun. But it’s their parade.”

His sentiments are shared by Gary Carr, Halton Region chair.

“I’m in quite a few parades,” said Carr. “I enjoy it. It kicks off the Christmas season. I like to support them when I can but I also respect the fact it’s their decision. In this case they decided they didn’t want anyone in and I respect their decision. I won’t be doing what Garth Turner is doing.”

Ricker and his organizing committee hope Turner won’t become the Grinch that stole Milton’s Christmas and turn the Santa Claus parade into a media circus. “We’re hoping everything will be fine and we’re going to do our best. … We want the parade to come off and do the best job we can for the kids – both big and little – in Milton.”

By Debra Black of the Toronto Star

When even a relatively successful operator has had it, you know Ontario agriculture is in big trouble

There’s something new growing in Bert Andrews’ field, in front of the patch of long-wilted rhubarb and the wispy, overgrown asparagus.

“For Sale/Lease, By Owner” reads the giant white sign, “Growing Farm Business, Winery and Farm Property. ”

After 27 seasons, Andrews’ Scenic Acre, on the outskirts of Milton, is going the way most farms in the area have gone – out of business.

Not because it hasn’t been profitable – this past season has been Andrews’ best to date. But he had open-heart surgery last year, and none of his children wants to take over the operation.

“I’m 64 years old – I want my Sundays off,” Andrews says on a warm fall afternoon, looking out at his fields and the russet-coloured Niagara Escarpment in the distance. The heads of his towering Russian sunflowers have long turned black and now curl downward. The last of his pumpkins have been sold. And the haystack, which visiting schoolchildren jumped on until last week, will soon be dismantled – perhaps for the last time.

It’s the end of an era, not just for Andrews, but also for agriculture in the Toronto area.This is the best farmland in the country. But we’re quickly paving it over. The Greater Toronto Area – including Durham, Halton, Peel and York regions – lost 16 per cent of its farms between 1996 and 2001. Since then, another five per cent have disappeared.

There’s a sign nailed beside the door of Andrews’ barn that reads: “Farmers Feed Cities.” It should say: “Cities Eat Farms.”

Up to 80 per cent of the produce we buy travels thousands of kilometres by truck or plane. Even apples – which are quintessentially Ontarian and can keep in cold storage for months – travel 5,900 kilometres on average to get to us, according to a recent Region of Waterloo Health study.

Contrary to what one might think given how much of our food is imported, Canadians spend less of their disposable income on nourishment – about 10 per cent on food and non-alcoholic beverages, according to the OECD – than residents of most other developed countries. A related fact: domestic farmers make less than half of what Toronto garbage collectors earn. (The average farm earns less than $25,000 a year before expenses, according to the latest census report.)

The profession’s self-esteem is in the gutter. As Andrews regularly points out, Ontario agriculture minister was once a plum posting. Now, it’s an afterthought, rarely noted in reports about cabinet shuffles, because it’s no longer considered a powerful portfolio, even though it’s the only ministry that touches all of us many times daily.

Faced with a future of long hours, little respect and less pay, is it surprising that young farmers are leaving the land in droves?

Despite the growing local food movement, most farmers and food policy wonks agree: the future of Ontario farming is bleak. Most predict it will take a horrific event like 9/11 to wake us up to the dangers of relying entirely on foreign food.

“I have a three-month-old granddaughter, and I don’t want her to be hungry in her lifetime,” says Mike Shook, program manager with FarmStart, a Guelph-area non-profit aiming to get more farmers on the land. “If we keep in the direction we are, I fear she will be.”

Many urge the government to take action before it’s too late. The Greenbelt – which protects 720,000 hectares of land circling Toronto from development– is a start, they say. But protecting land is one thing; ensuring that food grows on it is another. Horse farms are the second fastest-growing agricultural category in the Toronto area, after cash crops like winter wheat, according to the last census.

“We need a master plan,” says Andrews.

He remains among the small minority of optimists. How else would he have survived almost three decades of farming near Milton, the fastest growing municipality in the country, as subdivisions and golf ranges replaced the fields he once ploughed?

The ultimate proof: he hopes to sell his property to a farmer.

“There are people who think I don’t have a hope in hell,” he chuckles. “But I’ve been hearing that all my life.”

To an outsider, Andrews’ Scenic Acres seems one of the most successful farms around. The 39-hectare property bursts with blackberries, pumpkins, strawberries … as well as 17,000 bottles of fruit wine a year. Andrews runs a bustling market out of one of his barns and sends his produce out to eight farmers’ markets every week.

More than 15,000 school children tour his farm each summer. And far more than that come out, mostly on weekends, to pet his goats and ride a tractor out to the fields to pick their own food. One Sunday this fall, a record 3,300 people swarmed the farm to pick pumpkins. For many city slickers, such “entertainment farms” have become their only connection to rural life.

No matter how successful and cherished Andrews’ Scenic Acres may be, is it realistic to think a farmer will buy it when speculators are scooping up property all around Andrews? Nearby farmland inside the Greenbelt is going for $20,000 an acre – a price most farmers could never afford. Farms like his that fall outside the Greenbelt border are running at $50,000 an acre. Which means only a Rosedale stockbroker would have the necessary cash.

That’s exactly who Andrews is banking on – “It would have to be somebody who had passion.”

Wayne Roberts, project co-ordinator for the Toronto Food Policy Council, has a different buyer in mind: the Ontario government. “That’s obvious to anyone concerned with the future of food security in Ontario,” he says. Not only would the province save the most productive land from being stripped of its topsoil and converted to homes and malls, but it could also boost aspiring farmers into the business by renting out small acreages to them at affordable prices – he calls them “farm condominiums.”

“Once land is changed from agriculture into something else,” he says, “it’s almost impossible to reclaim. If this farm goes, it’s not late – it’s too late.”

By Catherine Porter, Environment Reporter for the Toronto Star

The following post is by Mike Cluett. Please visit Mike Cluett’s Milton blog site here:

Just the mere mention of that intersection causes many residents in the area to roll their eyes.

Why? We have seen many near misses of vehicles driving down Yates from Thompson Road with cars coming out of March Crossing. This past weekend was no different.

Let’s go back in time to this past summer around the dinner hour. Local residents were brought out of their homes with the sounds of screeching tires, loud thumps and a big bang. What had happened was a car traveling north on Yates Drive towards Bennett Blvd. at what witnesses describe as “over the speed limit”, narrowly missing a vehicle coming out on March Crossing into the intersection. This car swerved to miss that car, lost control, jumped the curb on the opposite side of the road and smashed into a house. Luckily there was no one hurt. The car sustained some damage and the bay window of the home was damaged.

As those of us who live in the area know, kids are walking up and down the sidewalk heading to their friends’ homes or to the local parks and thank God no one was there when this happened.

Now, we go back to this past Saturday and almost the exact same thing happened again…

To continue reading this column, go to Mike Cluett’s Milton Blog.