Three weeks before the municipal election, the pause button has been hit on London's Bus Rapid Transit plan so officials can look at how its construction could affect close to 70 potential heritage properties.
The announcement was made Monday afternoon in a news release sent to the media. According to the statement, the Transit Project Assessment Process is being halted so more information can be gathered about "potential heritage impacts."
“Through discussions with the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport (MTCS), we determined there is a need at this point to more fully explore any potential heritage impacts and describe in detail our strategy for managing and mitigating any impacts,” said Jennie Ramsay, BRT project director. “We opted to pause the process to assure the Ministry we are adequately addressing this matter of provincial concern before moving forward.”
The statement says the BRT project team has identified 67 properties that could potentially have cultural heritage value and may be affected by the construction of BRT. However, it also says it is likely that many of the 67 will be determined to be without cultural heritage value. For those that are deemed to have such value, officials believe there will be ways to minimize or avoid the effects of construction through "design tweaks."
"The BRT project is in a legislated, 120-day public consultation period that was expected to wrap up October 4, when the project report would enter a 30-day public review period before being sent to the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks for review. Briefly pausing the formal process is not expected to have a material impact on the overall 10-year project timeline," the statement said.
Although the pause is described as being brief, it's not known exactly how long it will last.
