Dozens of residents across Centre Wellington were at the Elora Community Centre on Sept. 7 to get a fresh look at plans to rebuild Mill Street West.
The township is planning the reconstruction of West Mill Street, between Price and Metcalfe Streets, in downtown Elora in two phases. The work would take place this fall and later next year.
Stantec Consulting’s landscape architect Tim McCormick, said things are going well. His part of the project, streetscaping, involves taking the concept and turning it into a detailed design. McCormick said the plan is to first get the underground servicing in place, which “is going to happen this year.”
Further design details will be drafted over the winter with final streetscaping and surfacing work in 2018.
“We wanted to make sure we could get the underground servicing in place – determining what would be above and below ground,” he said.
With that in place, the design will be refined over the winter months, McCormick said.
Centre Wellington’s managing director of infrastructure services Colin Baker noted that earlier that day council awarded the tender for the first phase of underground work to Drexler Construction Limited for a total of $973,452 (including a contingency allowance of $100,000 and excluding HST).
Baker said work will be done this fall and a temporary layer of asphalt installed until work proceeds next year on streetscaping, concrete sidewalks and amenity areas.
One of the changes will be an accessible ramp from Metcalfe Street to the south side of Mill Street. The current access is a short staircase – though people wanting level access to the sidewalk do walk behind parked cars along Mill Street.
McCormick said the work will tie into village bridge projects as well.
General streetscape improvements include enhanced accessibility, new concrete sidewalks with textured and coloured areas, landscaping, benches, bike racks, decorative heritage style street lighting, burying existing above-ground telephone and hydro lines, refined parking spaces including accessible parking, and servicing and drainage improvements.
The township conducted a Municipal Class Environmental Assessment to identify the preferred streetscape concept through consultation with the community, Heritage Centre Wellington, the Elora BIA, and various provincial ministries.
Since early 2016, township staff and consultants have been working together through a public consultation process to develop the preferred concept alternative for Mill Street West.
The project aims to:
– incorporate two-way traffic with a turning lane and refined street parking with wheelchair accessible parking spaces; and
– replace aging underground municipal services with a new watermain.
At the same time, the two-part construction plan was chosen to avoid the busy summer season and winter construction.
During the initial phase, the west end of West Mill Street will be closed to traffic between Price Street and the Elora Mews, while the east end of the street will remain open to allow for deliveries.
In the second phase (in late 2018), the east end of West Mill Street will be closed to traffic between Metcalfe St. to the Elora Mews driveway, while the west end will remain open for deliveries.
The garbage pickup schedule will remain unchanged. The contractor will assist with garbage pickup along the street to an arranged location for pickup by County of Wellington Solid Waste Services.
There will be a shared bicycle lane on the Metcalfe Street bridge that leads into downtown Elora. Cyclists will also be able to ride across the proposed Victoria Street pedestrian bridge into the future piazza on West Mill Street. Bike racks will be provided on West Mill Street.
A proposed signed route is planned from the piazza at the Victoria Street bridge, along the west end of West Mill Street and up Price Street, to connect with the existing multi-use trail in Victoria Park.
However, due to the layout of the existing historical buildings along West Mill Street and the limited width of the road, there is not enough space to include a designated bike lane along West Mill Street without negatively affecting the heritage character of the street.
