THUNDER BAY — Residents in the northwest end of the city are questioning the plan to build a major new road through the area.
Dozens of residents spoke out at a public open house in Thunder Bay on Wednesday about the planned Northwest Arterial roadway.
The 3.76-kilometre roadway would connect Dawson Road and Golf Links Road. It's part of a plan to improve the transportation in the city in alignment with the possible four-laning of the Thunder Bay Expressway by the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO).
Hannah Persichino, a resident who recently moved to the area, attended the event with her children. She said she understands that there needs to be infrastructure for increased traffic, but said putting it through a residential area ‘just doesn’t make sense.’
“The reason that we moved there was because it had a semi-rural feel, not a lot of traffic through the area, a lot of nature for our children to run in and now they’re talking about putting this big road that if we look at it is going to take a lot of traffic from the area and put it right beside us,” said Persichino.
The city is currently updating its environmental assessment for the project, which was first conducted in 1989 and added to in 1992.
Persichino said she thinks it's problematic that work was conducted so long ago.
“The areas have grown exponentially since then and they have more buildings, more apartment buildings going up," she said.
"So when we’re looking at all of that traffic that’s now going to come through our neighbourhood, the sound, the environment, all of that is going to be impacted, even the safety of our children. They just put it in a new park and now they’re going to have to cross this super busy road that right now is just a dirt road to get to a park that’s in the neighbourhood.”
Robbin Lavoie, a resident of Cherry Ridge Road, is also concerned with the changes to the area over the past decades. He said he recognizes the necessity of the traffic flow but thinks there are other viable options that, ‘given the length of time since this study was done, need to be looked at.’
“I was here with an open mind to try to get some information. I mean, obviously, I live in Cherry Ridge, so there will be an impact and recognizing that the city is growing, my concern has been why the city in its official plan 50 years ago, didn’t put the road in then, instead of building around it. Now we’re kind of shoehorning a road through to deal with traffic issues in residential neighbourhoods,” Lavoie said.
He said overall, building the road would be a positive outcome but as it's practically in his backyard, it will, unfortunately, impact a variety of things, including property values and things of that nature, which he doesn’t think were considered enough in the design phase of this program.
There were a lot of questions about the roads, access to the roadway and why this project is needed, said Matthew Miedema, the director of engineering with the City Thunder Bay, who spoke to residents at the open house.
“The big question we’re getting is, why do we need this arterial? And the answer is we need this arterial again tied to MTOs work. The city doesn’t need it today, for traffic is flowing okay in that northwest part of the city, but we need it if MTO proceeds with the interchange work on Thunder Bay’s expressway,” said Miedema.
Miedema said feedback gathered at the open house will help inform a final environmental study report, which the city will release in Q1 of next year.
He said another comment period will follow the report to allow the public to further comment on it with final recommendations.
“Any comment is a good comment. We won’t say no. We’ll just take that feedback, incorporate into the final recommendations of the project. So, we hope to proceed with the project. But again, it’s really tied to the MTOs project and if you have a concern with a particular issue with the Arterial Road, we’ll take it into the final design,” said Miedema.
Miedema said the corridor would impact traffic in the northwest part of the city, but they wouldn’t build it without the MTOs project proceeding on the highway.
“The MTO is working on their project; they’ve updated their environmental study, so we want to update our environment study to be ready for design for this project so if MTO proceeds on the four lanes in the Thunder Bay expressway and interchange project, our project will be ready as well,” said Miedema.
“Without this project, traffic will be severely congested in the northwest part of the city,” he said. “So, this new arterial road will alleviate a lot of that traffic congestion and help traffic flow on the expressway south and connect.”
This is only the first public consultation, said Miedema, and a second one will come in the new year to gather more feedback.
Residents can find more information about the project and the environmental assessment process on the city’s website.
