The construction of the LRT stations at Bayview (to be known as Leaside) Mt Pleasant, Don Mills (Science Centre) and at Chaplin Crescent and Bathurst Streets will require old-fashioned cut and cover digging. That’s what was needed to build the Yonge subway 65 years ago. The intersections at Eglinton and crossing streets will be opened up and then covered with metal plates to accommodate traffic as possible. Other stations such as Laird (which will go by its real name) and Avenue Rd. will be built by a process known as mining in which earth is dug out underground and removed by conveyor. Stations where transit lines cross, as in the case of Yonge and Eglinton, will see work done well underground. The LRT line must travel beneath the Yonge subway and its station will sit below the present subway stop.
MEETING TUESDAY
These were some of the things to be learned at a Metrolinx information meeting in the Lea Room at Leaside Gardens Tuesday night. Early in the evening at the two-hour exhibit of charts and photo/art depictions there were as many as 125 people present. Metrolinx employees circulated asking if there were questions. Work on the stations is beginning. Demolition has been completed at Bathurst, Avenue Rd. Bayview (McDonalds) Laird (the strip mall) and the historic former CIBC building at Mt. Pleasant, which will serve as the housing for the LRT station, is vacant.
