No decision on Stouffville GO train whistles until after 2018 election
Those noisy trains aren’t stopping anytime soon

Yorkregion.com
April 3, 2018
Simon Martin

Those noisy trains aren’t stopping anytime soon.

The issue of whistle cessation keeps coming before Whitchurch-Stouffville council and the issue keeps getting kicked down the road.

First it was at the Aug. 22nd meeting last year, when council deferred the matter until 2018 and now council has once again pushed the issue until after the upcoming election, at a meeting last month.

CAO Roman Martiuk recommended that the next council be the ones to make a decision on the matter as it will factor with many other initiatives moving forward.

So for the foreseeable future, the train conductor will lay on the whistle at Ninth Line, at Reeves Way, at Hoover Park and at Main Street. The horn is not needed when it crosses Millard Street or Bethseda because those rail crossings meet Transport Canada’s whistle cessation standards.

In 2011, council based a bylaw to stop whistles at the Hoover Park and Reeves Way crossings contingent on making the upgrades to the intersection. The town set aside $100,000 in its 2017 budget for whistle cessation measures, but chose to defer the motion.

Ward 6 Coun. Rob Hargrave, whose ward encompasses the two crossings in question, said council needs to take action on the matter as it is the issue residents call him most about.