They are expecting another packed house tonight at the final public meeting regarding High Speed Rail.
THORNDALE - InterCityRail.org is hosting one more public information meeting regarding high speed rail tonight in Thorndale.
Hundreds of people attended the first two meetings in Tavistock and New Hamburg. Township of Zorra Councillor Marcus Ryan will sit on the panel tonight and explains some of the concerns people have with the proposed line.
"The main issues that we are hearing about in Zorra, in Oxford, in the rural areas is the loss of prime agricultural land, hundreds of acres of land that will be ripped up to facilitate high speed rail and once that land is gone it is gone forever. In addition to that there is the issues around dead ended roads, which will result in longer emergency response times, longer school bus rides, some communities will be cut off from one another. Some farm businesses could become non viable if the high speed rail line puts the barn on one side and the manure storage on the either side, a lot of agriculture operations today are thousands of acres, not hundreds of acres, they could be cut in half and become not viable."
Deputy Mayor of East Zorra Tavistock, Maureen Ralph says they have been collecting hundreds of letters letters from the public at these meetings
"The public meetings are to be able to inform the general public of the intents of the Government to proceed with this high speed rail initiative and what we are simply looking for the Government to be able to expand the Environmental Assessment, the EA process, to include looking at alternatives. By signing the letters of support, these letters will be forwarded to the Government to encourage them to give us a simple ask of please open up the EA and allow us to look at alternatives."
The meeting tonight is from 7-9 p.m. at the Purple Hill Country Hall in Thorndale.
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