A Loser Takes All Battle Of The Best Argued NIMBY Case
A vast 1,000 km stretch of land between Quebec City and Toronto could be bisected by a thin high speed rail line within ten years.
And who would have figured that in one small section of that vast expanse, two distinct corridors are being considered for that thin line, and that our region would be in the centre of that section.
Of those two, the people who live in the corridor that is chosen will not win out, they will lose out. This is not a lottery where you want to have the winning ticket. While there will be bridges built over major north south arterial roads along the path of the rail line, that will not be the case for small roads. They will become dead end roads, and detours will need to be used, or built, to travel to one of the larger roads and get past the fenced in rail line. Farmer's fields could be cut off from each other as well. It is unclear if lakes will be avoided completely along the route, or if bridges, or tunnels, are being contemplated.
There was speculation last week in the national media about tunnels, to be dug under lakes in some cases, heading onto the island of Montreal and into Ottawa. For cost reasons, lakes are likely going to be avoided elsewhere. That makes both the northern and southern potential corridors through Frontenac County a lot narrower.
Recognising that the communities that the rail line passes through will be negatively impacted, Alto officials have promised a community benefit package. This is the same language that proposed energy projects seeking support from rural municipalities use, and in those cases the “community benefit” is an annual payment to the local townships that are impacted.
So, there is something in it for the township but nothing for the individuals who are impacted. And for those whose property owners whose land will be expropriated, there will be no option but to sell.
The consultation period about the preliminary mapping and the two corridors is underway. A survey is available at the Alto website, and there is an interactive map available, where people can identify a location that concerns them, and leave a comment. In the first days of the map being available, Sydenham residents have commented in large numbers.
Fifty comments have been made from Sydenham and vicinity, virtually all of them negative. There have also been many comments from people living along the northern corridor in Frontenac and Lennox and Addington, and none of them have been particularly welcoming either.
At the public meetings that are scheduled for March in Perth, Stirling, and Madoc, opponents of the southern corridor will likely come out in numbers as well.
When the two corridor options were unveiled by Alto two weeks ago, they said the northern route presented geographic challenges because of terrain, and the southern route had better terrain but more impact on larger communities.
If the line does go north, it would seem that the way the lakes are laid out will also be a major factor. Threading a needle between all the lakes in Lanark Highlands, North Frontenac, Addington Highlands and North Hastings is a challenge.
Because Crotch Lake and its vicinity is the proposed location of a provincial wilderness park, as a side arrangement to the land settlements in the Algonquin Land Claim, I would expect the route will want to avoid the lake and the proposed parkland around it, If they go south of Crotch Lake, it would result in passing through Central Frontenac just north of Highway 7, and then Kennebec Lake is in the way. There is a pretty narrow corridor to the north as well. That still leaves some major North Frontenac Lakes, Palmerston, Kashwakamak, Marble, and Mississagagon, to name a few, potentially in the way.
When you zoom in on the interactive Alto map, and imagine that line running through it, you realise there is no way for a rail line to come though, north or south of Highway 7, without displacing people, altering a landscape that has been stable for generations of permanent and seasonal residents.
And the arguments against it talk about historical uses, environmental impacts, way of life, all the classic NIMBY arguments.
From the Frontenac County perspective, this train may be a nice idea in theory. However, it brings no benefit to our communities. But it will have a very real negative impact. And that is exactly what NIMBYism is all about.
The only way to win the Alto lottery in our region is for our corridor to lose out in the corridor selection process. And that essentially pits us against each other. And within the corridor that is selected, there will be a further lottery when the actual route is finalised. It will result in a minor inconvenience for some, and moving vans for others.
One comment from a spot near Kaladar, which was posted the Alto map on Monday night, sums everything up nicely. It says, “’This town is the pits. Run the line right through it.’ - the neigbouring town.”
