A safety solution by VIA Rail has many residents in the
Grenfell Glen community feeling like they were left out in the cold.
Without notice, residents of Pineglen Crescent looked out their window
to see the vegetation that separates their properties from the railway being
hacked at by Bobcats and logging machines.
“It is absolutely devastating,” Nardine Gahharry, a resident
of Pineglen, said. “There were mature trees there and wildlife, and now it’s
all gone.”
Malcolm Andrews, senior manager for media and community relations with VIA
Rail, said that sending the letters out so late in the process was a “screw
up.”
Work began to remove vegetation on the other side of the
tracks along Grenfell Crescent
on Aug. 26 — about an hour after residents received a letter
in their mailbox.
“There was absolutely no warning,” Darlene Hale, a resident
of Grenfell Crescent,
said.
Hale had been getting ready to plan for her mother-in-law’s
birthday party when she heard the commotion and went out to see a huge bobcat
tearing down trees just over her back fence.
“We do apologize for that and are working towards making
sure that doesn’t recur as we are doing work on parts of the improvement
projects,” he said.
Andrews said the clear cutting was being done to make it
possible for crews to get and put safety fencing in. As part of the capital
project, there will be 30 kilometres of chain link fence on parts of the line
between Ottawa and Brockville.
As for the noise, Andrew said modern alloy techniques mean
the track is welded together to avoid the “clickety clack” associated with
trains and there are no whistles at crossings.
“We have almost no freight trains on that line and only
about 10 trains from Ottawa to Toronto per day,” he said. “They only run
from 6 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.”
Andrews did add that with trains going in excess of 120 km
per hour, there is a very real need to make sure no one is on the track.
Safety of the track aside, Hale said the day after workers
came in her yard was still littered with four and five-inch wooden shards and
the work continued.
“The workers told me they were careful about when people
were in the backyards, but these pieces (of wood) could have really hurt
someone,” Hale said.
In a homemade video, you can hear the crunch as a machine
with 50 blades takes down a mature maple tree in the back corner of Hale’s
property.
“It’s just awful,” Hale said, calling the machine “the
terminator.”
“Obviously, there’s nothing we can do about it, but we need
some answers about what is going to be put in place,” Hale said.
Andrews said they heard about some of the wood chips making their
way onto people’s property and VIA had asked contractors to deal with the
problem.
“Apparently the machine needed to be pointed a certain way
to have the refuse into a receptacle in the back of the machine,” he said. “We
asked that they point the machine towards the track so that any escaping wood
would be on the line and not on people’s properties. We will be sending work
crews in to clean up the wood off people’s property in some cases.”
Andrews said some fencing was also damaged where it came
close to the property line and some homeowners may be eligible to have VIA make
the repairs. Andrew said it was a case-by-case basis.
“There were some fences that strayed over the property line
over the years and we asked the parts to be moved in the letter, so in some
cases there was damage as workers tried to do the clearing,” he said.
Now that the clearing is done, Andrews said that workers
will come in and put up the fencing with minimal disruption to residents.
Gahharry said that a chain link fence isn’t enough,
residents need some barrier against noise. She said one of her neighbours
measured the decibel level of the train noise now that the plants have been
removed as a buffer.
“It’s 78 decibels,” she said.
With trains going by about eight times a day, Gahharry said
78 decibels is nearly unbearable.
“They said they are going to put a chain-link fence up for
safety,” she said. “But what about noise?”
Knoxdale-Merivale Coun. Gord Hunter said he had no idea VIA
Rail had planned the clear cutting until he started getting calls from
residents. He said he thinks it has to do with Transport Canada safety
regulations concerning railways.
“In urban areas the trains aren’t allowed to use whistles,”
he said. “So if the trains go above 80 kilometres per hour there has to be a
fence.”
According to Mélanie Quesnel media relations advisor for
Transport Canada,
there is no specific rule about speed, but right-of-ways along rail lines are
routinely inspected.
“Where Transport Canada determines there is an
immediate threat to public safety and railway operations (high levels of
trespassing are identified for example), each case is assessed on its own
merits. The department will either advise the railway to reduce the threat or
order the railway to undertake measures such as whistling through the entire
area in question and/or reducing train speeds,” she wrote in an email.
Hunter said the noise level could be troubling, but the city
is powerless to do anything about it.
“We have a noise-level bylaw, but that really applies to
festivals and concerts,” he said. “It is loud, but it’s only about eight times
a day and about the same noise as a bus, so people living near transit stations
would be having similar problems.”
Hunter said safety is an issue, as a couple of people have
been killed walking along the line in the last 25 years.
“I think it’s hard to argue with improvements for safety,”
he said.
Andrews said that VIA’s staff goes into schools and tries to
warn of the dangers of trespassing on the rail line.
“We are concerned for safety and we feel the changes are
necessary,” he said.
Hale said that a dog was killed on the tracks a couple of days
ago.
“I know they are trying to prevent people and animals from
going on the tracks, but I just don’t like the way they went about it,” she
said.
Nepean This Week was able to get a copy of the letter sent
to residents.
“…property adjacent to VIA’s railway corridor may be
affected in some way by the safety improvements. Most notably, the installation
of a safety fence on the VIA Rail right-of-way will be the most noticeable for
residents,” the letter said.
The project manager, Benoit Filion — who residents are asked
to contact with questions — is on vacation until Sept. 13, according to his
voicemail.
The improvements to safety include:
* new automatic warning devices and upgrades to existing
devices at level crossings
* grade crossing surface improvements
* installation of right-of-way safety fencing at various
locations
The improvements will be between Ottawa
and Brockville,
and are scheduled to be done before the end of 2010.
Many of the residents feel public consultation should have
happened before the fact and are looking to VIA for an open discussion in the
future about what is going to be put in place to mitigate noise and the
appearance of the tracks.
Carol Ermanovics, whose house backs onto the field, said she
never received any notice.
“It seems like a fait a complis,” she said.
Hale and Ermanovics both said they are holding out hope VIA
will put in some fast-growing vegetation to cover the fence and the rail line,
but Hale isn’t optimistic.
“I have heard talk about spraying to keep regrowth from happening,”
she said.
Andrews said no spraying will be happening, but VIA would not be putting any vegetation in to cover the fence.
"We are going to allow it to regrow naturally," he said.
Hale said she has lived in the area for 16 years and has
never been able to see the railway from the back window in her kitchen. Now her
view will include gravel and steel.