THUNDER BAY – Thunder Bay’s city council must overcome a steep procedural hurdle if it wants to take any action on a proposed designated truck route, city staff have confirmed.
It will take a two-thirds majority vote of council to either enact or definitively reject the DTR, councillors heard Monday in a report from the office of city clerk Krista Power.
The report advised councillors they have four options on the DTR, which would force heavy trucks off Arthur Street and Dawson Road and onto the provincial highway network, as well as restricting their travel within the city.
Recent fatal collisions involving transport trucks on Highway 102, which turns into Dawson Road, have put a renewed spotlight on the issue, and on Monday prompted more heated rhetoric from Coun. Trevor Giertuga, who has long championed the DTR.
He suggested councillors voting to block the DTR were allowing those incidents to continue, emphasizing that administration continues to recommend passing it, after finding it would lower the rate of deadly collisions.
Some councillors have rejected that advice, saying the Highway 11/17 extension that turns into the Harbour Expressway is unprepared to handle an estimated extra 1,000 trucks a day the DTR would shift to the route.
“We have administration who’s telling us the safer route is the DTR,” Giertuga said. “I know I sleep well at night – I hope everyone else does.”
Council’s options to move forward with the DTR include rescinding the original 2019 vote to implement it; amending that decision with a meaningful change to the DTR proposal; reversing a 2020 vote against a bylaw to enact the DTR; and taking no action, leaving the issue for the next council elected in October 2022.
All but the last, taking no action, would need to be put forward by someone from the winning side of the previous vote, and would require a two-thirds majority, Power advised.
That would appear to be a challenging threshold to meet, with previous votes on the DTR passing by tight 7-6 or 7-5 margins.
Once the 2022-2026 term begins, council could move forward with a simple majority vote, Power said.
The decision to implement a DTR was passed 7-6 in 2019, but after Coun. Brian Hamilton had a change of heart on the issue, two subsequent votes to enact it with a new bylaw failed to find majority support.
City manager Norm Gale told councillors last month his administration won’t present another proposed bylaw unless council provides direction on specific changes it wants to see.
Coun. Cody Fraser, whose Neebing ward includes the stretch of Arthur Street West that would see truck traffic removed by the DTR, said he’d be willing to broker what might be a politically damaging compromise.
Fraser offered his support for an amendment to have the DTR force trucks only off Dawson Road, allowing them to continue using Arthur. He hoped the change could address the more pressing Dawson Road situation while alleviating concerns about increased truck traffic on the Highway 11/17 extension.
“I don’t do that lightly, but there are some things more important than my political capital, and that’s one of them,” he said.
He encouraged any councillors who might be open to changing their votes to reach out to him. On Monday, however, council accepted Power's report with no action taken.
