{"id":26054,"date":"2020-02-27T23:04:09","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T04:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26054"},"modified":"2020-03-06T18:11:29","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T23:11:29","slug":"wellington-street-business-owners-raise-alarm-bells-on-planned-underpass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wellington-street-business-owners-raise-alarm-bells-on-planned-underpass\/","title":{"rendered":"Wellington Street business owners raise alarm bells on planned underpass"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dr. Philip Kritzinger\nsays he has been down this road before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He opened the doors\nto his York Laser & Med Spa in Aurora just over two years ago, having moved\nthe clinic from Newmarket\u2019s Davis Drive to a brand-new build on Wellington\nStreet East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, Davis\nDrive was undergoing significant reconstruction to accommodate new bus lanes\nfor the VIVA Rapidway, putting stress on area businesses whose customers and\nclients couldn\u2019t readily get to their destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Dr. Kritzinger\nis braced for being back at square one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was one of more\nthan 125 residents who came out to the Aurora Community Centre on Monday night\nto seek answers as Metrolinx held an open house to discuss expanded GO Train\nservice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of the ongoing\nrail expansion project, Metrolinx is slated to build a vehicular underpass\nbeneath the current rail line that crosses Wellington Street. While the\nunderpass is expected to ease traffic flow in the long run as the Province\nmoves towards all-day two-way 15-minute GO Train service along the Barrie\ncorridor, area business owners are speaking out on the short- and long-term\nimpacts this construction will have on the community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe construction is\ngoing to hurt me a lot,\u201d said Dr. Kritzinger. \u201cI moved from Davis Drive a few\nyears ago after having put up with construction for almost four years and now I\nam going to do it all over again. Traffic will stop driving by, people will be\nunwilling to come into my office because of the construction mess and I lose two\nthings: I lose business because people won\u2019t want to come into construction,\nand I lose business because there\u2019s less drive-by traffic seeing my property\nfor two years or three years. They say two years, but I don\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Business owner Farid\nAmeryoun will also be directly impacted by the underpass construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ameryoun is a realtor\nat York National Realty, located just west of the former Baldwin\u2019s building\nadjacent to the current rail crossing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The business operates\nout of the former Hartman\u2019s Corners schoolhouse, one of the Town\u2019s oldest\nstanding buildings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Metrolinx\u2019s underpass\nplans have left Ameryoun questioning whether the building will even be left\nstanding once the project is completed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be sitting 15 feet up from the road,\u201d he said. \u201cThere will be no exposure from the road and we will lose access from Wellington Street. I came here tonight hoping to find some information on what they plan to do with these properties, and Baldwin\u2019s next door. I will have access from Centre Street so that could help [offset not having passing traffic] but there is talk of expropriation and that\u2019s what really interests me. We have one of the oldest buildings in York Region from 1838 and that is a concern. We spent quite a lot of money trying to preserve it, and get it designated as a heritage building and it would be a shame to see that building gone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith the detour on\nCentre Street, you can imagine the nightmare that is going to create for all\nthose residential neighbourhoods behind; it is constant traffic at that time.\nWhat\u2019s promised and what actually happens are very different. We\u2019re probably\nlooking at long-term construction. I can\u2019t see it happening in two years and\nthe neighbours behind are going to be impacted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monday\u2019s public\nmeeting also attracted those slightly removed from Wellington Street, but whose\nneighbourhoods could also be impacted by traffic flows looking to get around\nthe construction snarl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSpeaking as an\nindividual, I think that change is really good for the Town,\u201d said Anna\nKroeplin of the Town Park Area Ratepayers Association. \u201cI think keeping our\ncharacter is incredibly important and significant and that is what makes Aurora\nso attractive to everybody, but we need to change with the times, we do need to\nmake it accessible for everybody. The underpass is going to be awful growing\npains, of course, but I think, in the long run, it will be worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Representatives from\nMetrolinx on site for Monday\u2019s meeting declined to take questions from the\nmedia at that time, asking for a submission via email. A response had not been\nreceived at press time, but this story will be updated as information is made available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the full impact\nof the underpass is not yet clear, the issue was addressed by Mayor Tom Mrakas\nlast week as the Aurora Chamber of Commerce hosted the annual Mayor\u2019s Luncheon\non Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Mrakas was\nasked by Sandra Ferri, Executive Director of the Aurora Chamber of Commerce, to\nelaborate on the Town\u2019s plans to keep Wellington Street East businesses\n\u201cthriving\u201d during the construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy job as Mayor,\nTown Staff, Council, is going to be to work as hard as we can to make sure we\nmitigate the amount of impacts that will be put onto our business community,\nour residents in the area,\u201d he replied. \u201cIt is something, unfortunately, that is\ncoming from the Province, it is something that has to be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cif you can imagine 15 minute all day every day GO trains coming in and out on Wellington and those arms dropping down, you can imagine the traffic nightmare. It is that old saying: short term pain for long-term gain. I can guarantee you\u2026 we\u2019re going to be working as hard as we can, working with Metrolinx, working with the Province to make sure that those impacts that are felt by our business community are as minimal as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Construction plans for traffic underpass at Wellington Street rail crossing raise concerns from area business, property owners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2020-02-27-06.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Me","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-01 08:44:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}