Uncomplimentary elements of the Railpath

post submitted by blog  reader SP

As a daily rider of the new rail path I’m left with one question:

Where are the garbage bins?  Garbage has begun to pile up in the form of
Mcdonalds trash, dog poop in bags and endless bottles.  Is there no
maintenance of the path?

uncomplimentary elements of the Railpath

14 Comments

It could do with a little policing too. Last Saturday September 12th at 7PM I saw a man shooting heroin while sitting on a step at the back of the storage place. He had a jacket pulled up over his head like some sort of invisible cloak. Wasn't so invisible.

11 Division bike cops… where you at?

I see them ride along the path when all the families are out, say 7pm ish… but after dark? Nowhere to be seen!

Would love to know their policy for coverage and enforcement of this new stretch of "path"

Be advised that the RP is not officially completed, as of yet. Garbage facilities and pick-up are on the way. I'll let you know if I get a timeline…

I haven't heard of any additional complains of a 'drug problem' along the path, but I've passed on your comments concerning this.

I'm on the Railpath almost daily, often 2 or 3 times. I've never seen anyone doing any kind of drugs. Haven't seen any needles around either.

I would assume that by the time the park is "officially" complete, it will have garbage/recycling containers along the way. Anyone know what the status of that is? Could ask Giambrone's office I suppose. (Actually, another neighbour and reader of this blog just emailed me and said, "Bins are on their way. I called parks last week.")

The garbage along there doesn't seem tooooooo bad yet, but I think some bins would help keep it cleaner. My wife and I occasionally pick up trash when we're walking along there, and it seems that other people must be helping to keep it clean too, as I see other garbage disappear before I get to it.

I'm not saying its a haven for drug use but that incident with the guy shooting up did happen and it was still light out. I'm sure its a rare occasion but still…

Since this post somebody has cleaned up a lot of the garbage. There was a big pile of plastic water bottles near the Nestle plant that were cleaned up as of this mornings ride.

This blog gets noticed!

There's also the matter of graffiti on the path, which is extreme in places. Planting climbing ivy by buildings facing the path might be a way to discourage it. Then there's just the art to worry about.

A.R., there is no way to discourage Graffiti. They'd be better off painting the defaced walls white, and paying local artists to do proper murals from respected "crews" within the city. There will always be the garbage "tags" on benches, poles, and walls, but a couple of proper murals would reverse the trend. If you notice the path south of Bloor st, of the murals that have been done on the backside of buildings bordering the train line, very few have been defaced with tags. Some have, but thats the nature of immature kids with markers, something that will never change.

Bins are coming. Parks told me this last week.

There are a few locals who bring home garbage each day.

There will be more signs etc going up specifically about people riding motorized vehicles which is prohibited. I have heard reports of some really belligerent scooter riders and one guy in a car trying to get onto the path.

Please don't get scooter riders mixed up with the e-bike riders. Scooter's are licenced vehicles with licenced drivers in Ontario whereas e-bikes are anybody and they don't have to have a licence. Therefore theydon't have a licence to lose for being a jerk.

Murals are good too. There's no way to eliminate graffiti, but generally speaking there are many ways to discourage graffiti like frequent removal education, security, creative punishments, strategic plantings, and the above mentioned murals. There are probably more which I haven't thought of.

Two other concerns:

Last time I checked, the sidewalk on Caribou Ave at the endpoint isn't flush with the road, which is a disappointing inconvenience for cyclists. If rebuilding the sidewalk is too costly, adding some asphalt by the curb to create a slope is a cheap solution.

Entrances aren't always intuitive (especially the unsuspecting entrance on Caribou, a street of auto garages), so some signs on surrounding streets pointing to the entrance points would be good, like this one for the Gardiner Expressway:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/41/Gard-trailblazer.jpg , perhaps smaller.

Railpath 30-Minute Clean-up – A group of volunteers is meeting on Wednesday evening (Sept. 23) at 6:45 p.m. at the foot of the Wallace Street bridge to clean-up the garbage on the West Toronto Railpath. If you would like to join us, just bring a pair of work gloves and we will provide the bags. It's a great opportunity to do something nice for the hood, meet a few neighbours, get a little exercise and make the place look better for the hundreds of people who are using the trail everyday.

Graffiti has been mentioned but what about the vandalization of the street sign installations and the benches? It looks like immature scrawlings but the "broken window" theory would still apply. I would also concur with A.R. about the lack of a curb cut at the Caribou entry/exit point. More often than not cars are lined up along the curbside given the number of autobody shops on Caribou and the only ramp is on the property that's at the western edge of the entrance.
I wish I'd check this earlier blog today as I would have joined in the litter pick up this evening!

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