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Transportation master plan a tough slog

Frances Stocker at the corner of Niagara and Charlotte Streets. The town’s transportation master plan suggests Charlotte Street be widened and traffic redirected to use it to access the heritage district. Residents can comment on the plan until Aug.
Frances Stocker at the corner of Niagara and Charlotte Streets. The town’s transportation master plan suggests Charlotte Street be widened and traffic redirected to use it to access the heritage district. Residents can comment on the plan until Aug. 1. (Photo supplied)

It took Frances Stocker some time to plow through the town’s draft transportation master plan, making notes as she read it. But it was time well spent.

As a resident of Charlotte Street, she is especially concerned about the impact on her neighbourhood if the town moves ahead with the plan’s proposal to turn Charlotte into a collector road, to become a direct route to the Heritage District.

The plan states that would “help with traffic flow and safety, while serving to minimize the total number of vehicle kilometres travelled through the neighbourhood,” such as on Rye, Paffard, Flynn, Cottage, and Green Streets.

But the lane-widening on Charlotte to accommodate extra traffic would add about 400 vehicles an hour to the street, without actually getting them to the Heritage District, she says.

Stocker is not an engineer — her career was dealing in information, as a library manager and policy planner, which included looking looking at possibilities for the future.

She doesn’t see this draft plan boding well for the future. Its proposed upgrades focus on shifting congestion from approach roads into the centre of Virgil and Old Town, which is where congestion already exists.

Although the plan states a goal of establishing a transportation system that promotes walking, cycling, and transit, it assumes the use of personal vehicles will continue to be the prioritized form of transportation through 2031 and beyond, without  envisioning “a proactive and achievable shift away from personal vehicles,” she says.

The recommendations come with a price tag of $64 million, yet the plan doesn’t solve the parking problem once vehicles arrive in town. And it does nothing to address the environment and climate change that is creating the recent extreme temperatures and wildfires we’re experiencing this summer, she says.

“This seems like a good time to start thinking about where we’re going with climate change, and the vehicles that are the driving force behind it. We can and must do something to address carbon emissions, and do it so we can still enjoy our cars, and yet can also leave them behind in a way that makes visiting and getting around town less stressful and more peaceful.”

In 10 to 20 years, she says, there could be solutions so that fewer cars come into town, with parking made available by the QEW, and using the hospital site as a transition hub to travel around the Old Town, as well as visiting areas in the periphery, such as the Niagara Pumphouse Arts Centre or the many wineries.

Adjacent roads to the main street, such as Simcoe and Victoria Streets, can’t deal with the traffic they have now, and won’t get better for the future. Instead, “let’s not bring those cars into town,” she suggests.

For all its faults, the plan does recommend transit hubs near the QEW, “an immense challenge, but one worth pursuing,’ says Stocker.

In addition, she proposes a hop-on/hop-off (HOHO) system, that could one day put everyone in the urban area within five minutes of transportation. It’s used in tourism spots all over the world — she points out the ease of visiting places like New York City, or a smaller city such as Savanah, Georgia — where people can see everything they want to without needing a car.

“Creating a peaceful, non-stressful environment will attract people. If we can’t do that, NOTL will no longer be the restorative, unique experience” that promises something different than the larger urban centres such as Niagara Falls, she says.

The HOHO, with parking at a central location near the QEW — the master plan mentions the outlet mall — could be a good solution for NOTL, with connections to Niagara Falls for visitors, and for residents to travel to Toronto without taking their cars.

It took her a couple of days to work through the transportation master plan, which has language “so jargon-laid, it’s really off-putting.”

That makes it difficult for residents who have been encouraged to offer their comments on the draft plan, to be taken into consideration by town staff before it’s presented to council mid-August.

Stocker says the plan should be put aside altogether. “The best use for it is to say ‘this is what we might have planned in 1980, but now what do we want the town to look like in the future.’”

She is proposing the town consider creating a transportation infrastructure that can be an attractive option for residents and visitors, that looks to the future, and that allows travelling within the town and beyond without a personal vehicle, enabling businesses to thrive sustainably, and incentivizing the lowest achievable carbon emissions from commercial vehicles.

NOTL could be a leader by coming up with a traffic plan that preserves heritage in a way that businesses, visitors and residents could all appreciate the final configuration, she says.

“There will likely be resistance, which is inevitable, and there will be valid points, but they could be a starting point for discussion,” she adds, and she would like to see that discussion begin with an end to implementing tactics that prioritize everyone coming to town by car.

“Instead of looking at how to make more space for cars, let’s look at getting more space for a solution that considers where cars are going.”

“Let’s look at how we can enjoy our town, and continue to make it attractive to live in, by managing the amount of traffic in an acceptable way. People love to live here, they’re coming here in droves, but as new homes are built, cars are still necessary to live in them.”

And when visitors have to drive around looking for parking, as they do on some of the busiest summer days, “your temperature goes up and your patience goes down and you say ‘it’s a nice town, but it was a nightmare and I’m not going back.’” 

A HOHO system could get people “right where the action is, whether it’s the Cherry Festival, the Peach Festival or the Candlelight Stroll,” she says. “It’s important to recognize people love their cars, they love travelling in their cars, so let’s not disrespect that, but make it a really nice option to travel without them.”

Money has been invested in the plan, she says, and the hardest thing for people who commissioned it is to say ‘let’s leave it behind,’ but instead of putting $64 million into its recommendations, “let’s put our resources into something we’ll like when we get there.”

That includes making sure the town has staff familiar with implementing innovation, which, she adds, “doesn’t have to be out of the blue sky - it just has to be new to the context you’re doing it in. Look at what others have done and how to make it work. Implement transportation that makes NOTL a really nice place to be.”

The report is available for review to Aug 1. The public is invited to review it and provide feedback via Join the Conversation at https://www.jointheconversationnotl.org/TransportationMasterPlan. 

You can email feedback directly to [email protected] or mail it to Town Hall 1593 Four Mile Creek Rd., P.O. Box 100, Virgil, ON, L0S 1T0.




About the Author: Penny Coles

Penny Coles is editor of Niagara-on-the-Lake Local
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