Guelph-Eramosa council is looking to encourage the province to install traffic lights at the Highway 7 and Dunbar/MacLennan intersection sooner rather than later.
After a lengthy discussion on Aug. 8, council decided to have public works director Harry Niemi seek quotes to install full traffic lights at the intersection.
During budget discussions earlier this year council included $60,000 for a Intersection Pedestrian Signal (IPS), which is a pedestrian crossing stop light with the full green, amber and red signalization.
“As we moved forward into 2016 the MTO (Ministry of Transportation) has indicated that it prefers full signalization to the IPS and would actually be reluctant to permit that IPS within their corridor,” Niemi said. “And they completed additional traffic counts and … they indicated that the most recent traffic and pedestrian counts actually indicate full signalization is now warranted.”
Niemi indicated the MTO will not pay for the installation of a traffic light for a number of years until funds become available.
“I can guarantee you if there’s an accident at that intersection this whole discussion would change dramatically,” Mayor Chris White said.
“I don’t want to be in one of those situations where we say, ‘Well maybe we could have done something but it was somebody else’s scenario.’”
The government did offer a cost-sharing program with the township to fast track the installation.
“We need to proceed with the design of full signalization to get an actual cost estimate so we can then work with the MTO in terms of all that cost share,” Niemi said.
The traffic lights would be on a provincial road so the responsibility lies with the MTO to pay for any work.
“The province really needs to pay for this,” White said. “At the end of the day this is their road and their responsibility but I think when you’re dealing with some of these things sometimes you need a strategy to move things along.”
His strategy is to complete the design so the township has leverage when discussing the traffic lights with ministry officials.
“MTO’s … a bit of a moving target and you can get things moved up and moved back depending on how serious you appear to be on an issue,” White said. “I mean the fact that as you may know we’ve actually kind of looked for a traffic light along Highway 7 for years.”
Councillor Corey Woods said he is frustrated it always seems to be the responsibility of the local council to improve these safety issues.
“Why does everything have to come out of our budget?” he asked. “We have the smallest budget. Why can’t it come out of the MTO budget or the school board budget or the provincial? Why does it have to come out of our budget?”
White clarified again, saying even if the township fronted the money for the design plan, they would be petitioning the provincial government to return those funds when the traffic lights are installed.
“We’re not letting them off the hook,” White said. “It’s not like we do MTO’s stuff all the time. It’s not like we’re paying for school board stuff all the time. We don’t pay for other jurisdictions’ stuff – that’s pretty rare.
“This is an absolute exception.”
White said the key is to lobby the government and prove the Rockwood traffic lights are necessary.
“My only thought is if we can push it by showing them we’re absolutely serious, we’re making a commitment,” White said. “‘We’re going to get the design done now, we need you to pay for the whole thing,’ that might give us some leverage.”
The MTO estimated the cost of new traffic lights would be approximately $390,000 because sidewalks need to be relocated, taper lanes widened and there could possibly be other infrastructure changes.
“I want 100 per cent MTO and I think that’s where we’re going to go,” White said. “Look, if we don’t do something … nobody spends zip and that problem exists every school year.”
Council asked staff to get a quote for how much it would cost to have the design work completed for the traffic lights.
