The 4-way stop at the Murray Street and Reaume Avenue intersection in Wallaceburg will remain in place for a couple more months.
Wallaceburg Coun. Jeff Wesley entered a successful motion at Monday’s council meeting to delay the move until the road construction is completed on McNaughton Avenue.
“It was something that has been brought forward to our attention from overwhelming community support,” Wesley said.
“I can give you a number of ways in how the community has supported what they would like to see done, but it is basically coming down to a safety concern. A very informal poll done by the Sydenham Current had 482 people respond to this survey and 81% fully supported leaving the 4-way stop there until after construction on McNaughton is completed.”
Wesley said Reaume Avenue has become busy due to the construction on McNaughton and the pending construction on Murray Street.
“If you want to avoid construction on McNaughton and you want to go to the mall, the gas station or you want to go to the Credit Union, you use Reaume because you can scoot from Murray Street right through past the construction on McNaughton to get where you need to go,” he said.
“I know there was some traffic studies done before construction took place and I know Thomas (Kelly) was out there the last couple days looking at some other things, but the fact is there were no formal traffic studies done during construction.”
Wesley added: “I fully acknowledge that the idea of taking out the 4-way stop was in the original reports and the original recommendations but the one thing that is not there is that we never discussed, never debated, never talked about… what would be the impact of this 4-way stop during major construction on McNaughton Ave.”
Wesley said the McNaughton construction is what brought this issue to a head.
“I can’t emphasize enough, this is not a change in council direction, we are not changing anything that is going to happen,” he said.
“We are just asking to allow to wait until construction is done so there is a little bit less confusion out there among both the drivers, the residents and the school kids.”
Wallaceburg Coun. Carmen McGregor said the community has spoken up about the issue.
“I know that council has had a barrage of emails in the last week in hearing from the community,” she said.
“Councillor Wesley and I have had many more and more phone calls and the community is deeply concerned especially with the Reaume crossing being so close to a public school. We, and as I feel myself with young kids in the area, I think that we are much better to make everybody stop from each direction while the confusion of construction is going on. I guess I did not sit at that corner and just sit and count cars but for the first time and many times I have seen a back up at that corner that I have not seen in years.”
McGregor said she understands the confusion and the concerns of the parents with children in that area.
“It was never the intent to change council’s direction but simply delay,” she said.
“It was not to have both running at the same time because yes that could be extremely confusion for drivers coming though. It was merely just simply asking that the stop signs remain in place until the construction is through.”
McGregor said the McNaughton construction should be wrapped up by July 27.
“At that point in time, summer is in full action,” she said.
“It also gives the community and the children in that area time with their parents to learn and understand a different kind of crosswalk from what they have been accustomed to, before which was a stop sign and a crossing guard.”
McGregor said at this point in time if drivers are coming off of Highway 40 and they get a green light at Baseline Road, there is nothing stopping a car between Highway 40 at 80 km/hour other than speed signs and the Murray Street bridge.
“It’s an accident waiting to happen,” she said.
“When the other lights are up that’s fine, but at this point in time when there is extra traffic coming from all different directions, no one will convince me otherwise that a 4-way stop in this short period of time is the better option for the safety of the kids in the area.”
North Kent Coun. Joe Faas said he had some concerns with the situation, comparing it to a similar issue in Dresden.
“I agree that safety is a big concern there,” he said.
“I look at the Dresden issue and council did not extend the crossing guard program as I would have liked to have seen that happen. We didn’t even get the two thirds vote to even debate it and discuss it. I look at this as a similar situation.”
Thomas Kelly, the general manager of infrastructure and engineering services, said despite the motion by Wesley, Municipal staff was still recommending to remove the 4-way stop, utilize a two-way stop and activate the PXO.
“I went out there and I spent some time just to get a feel for how things have changed since construction started,” Kelly said.
“I did not see any major changes. (On Monday) we sent out one of our traffic engineers. He did an abbreviated study and the study was very similar to the study we did last year. I understand and I sincerely appreciate the public, you know there has been a major change, but we are not seeing anything in the data. So our recommendation stands that according to the traffic manual of best practices that we move forward with the original recommendation and that is our position as this time.”
Kelly had said in an email last week that, pending the approval of Wesley’s motion, staff would cover the PXO markings and maintain the all-way stop until all construction in the area is completed.
Kelly said there would be some cost associated with the delay.
Council approved Wesley’s motion to delay by a vote of 14-2.
– With files from Tami Eagen
Kids do not pay attention to there surroundings.
Someone is going to be injured or killed if the 4 way stop is removed.