Protesters let minister in Vaughan know Markham train horns too loud

yorkregion.com
Aug. 25, 2017
By Tim Kelly

A Vaughan plaza was blasted with 15 seconds of car horn noise at around 11 a.m. today as Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca got to hear what some Markham residents believe he has foisted on them.

A group of about 30 people made the trip across York Region to the Rutherford Road constituency office of Del Duca to loudly protest his late June decision to add 5 a.m. and 11 p.m. GO trains through Markham and Stouffville before the City of Markham's train-whistle cessation program starts next year.

The transport minister wasn't in his office, but that didn't stop the crowd who came armed with signs, "Stop The Horns" T-shirts, and a megaphone demanding he take immediate action to either silence the train horns or take other action.

Shanta Sundarason, a Unionville resident who is the leader of the Stop the Horns group, presented a letter to Del Duca's office staff asking him to do something about the issue.

"I said, please give Mr. Del Duca a message that we need the 5 a.m. and 11 p.m. trains silenced ASAP because we have kids going back to school on Tuesday next week and we don't need them to be blasted out of bed at 11 p.m. at night," Sundarason said.

"We're just asking them to reschedule or put buses on instead of the trains, or silence them if they can, something has to happen before next Tuesday before all our children start school," she added.

Sundarason said Del Duca has done "absolutely nothing, he's made no response, no statement, except basically this is what the province is doing, accept it, it's called progress, which is unacceptable."

For Michelle Sukul-Chan, a mother of an eight-year-old and two teenagers, "we have to plan our lives around the train horns, our meals, our bed times. We can't open our windows at night when the train goes by at 11:11 p.m."

Reached for a comment, Del Duca said exactly what he said when the issue was previously raised. He offered no specific answers to any of the questions about 5 a.m. and 11 p.m. trains or whether train horns would be stopped.