Development in Collingwood’s west end has prompted the town to make a plan for work to improve two arterial roads including Mountain Road and Tenth Line.
Tom Nolert and Patrick Wojcieszynski, of Ainley Group, presented a plan to councillors at the June 11 meeting, which will be brought to a public information centre soon.
“Road and intersection improvements are necessary to accommodate future growth,” said Nolert in the presentation.
Ainley group has prepared an environmental assessment for Tenth Line from Sixth Street to Mountain Road and then for Mountain Road from Tenth Line to First Street.
There are an estimated 2,200 new residential units (Red Maple, Mair Mills, Linksview and Todco) planned adjacent to those roads to be built out by 2030 to 2037. That’s in addition to an industrial development at 185 Mountain Road, the Georgian Bay Biomedical Facility, and Bluewood Business Park, all expected to be completed by 2022. With this increase in residential and commercial units, Nolert predicts up to 25,000 vehicles per day on Mountain Road and 11,000 along Tenth Line.
The Ainley consultants are suggesting a roundabout at Tenth Line and Sixth Street. Ainley’s engineers evaluated the benefit of both a roundabout and a signal intersection, but the roundabout scored better on the matrix for safety, traffic and environment. Both scored the same for the cost.
There’s also a plan proposed to widen Mountain Road to five lanes of traffic (two lanes each direction and a turning lane in the centre), add bike lanes on each side of the road and a sidewalk on one side of the road.
The plan for Tenth Line is two lanes for traffic with bike lanes and sidewalks on each side. Wojcieszynski said the new Tenth Line would be “fully urbanized.”
Ainley is proposing a second roundabout at the intersection of Mountain Road and Tenth Line and a five-lane bridge on Mountain Road going over Ash Creek.
Council received the information only and didn’t make any decisions at this time.
The next phase of the environmental assessment process is to take the plan to the public for the second time to receive comments and feedback. Following this, Ainley will confirm the preferred alternative (roundabout or signal intersection) and prepare what’s called an Environmental Screening Report, which will be published for the public and open for comment for a 30-day period. Once this is clear, the town can proceed with implementation whenever necessary.
Brian MacDonald, the town’s director of public works and engineering, told the town there’s no date set for the work as it’s dependent on the development in the area. He said it was important to have the project shovel-ready so the town can proceed as soon as it is needed. It will largely be funded by development charges since it is a development-related upgrade, and MacDonald said he would come to council with a fully-costed business plan once the proposal is ready for implementation.
