NEWS
Your Community Newspaper
FILE
Trucks rumble down Bridge Street through Manotick every weekday. Residents have long complained that the village core should not be a truck route, and now Manotick Village Community Association president Klaus Beltzner is hoping to add a city-wide truck route review to the city’s 2013 budget.
Put truck study in budget: Manotick leader Emma Jackson emma.jackson@metroland.com
Rideau-Goulbourn Coun. Scott Moffatt said he supports any effort to add the study to the budget as part of the city’s transportation master plan, but staff currently have no plans to include it. “I’m trying to find out more information, and if there’s some wiggle room. It’s definitely something worth exploring,” he said. Staff have maintained that they would like the ongoing interprovincial bridge study to be completed first, and it is scheduled for the end of 2012 or early 2013. “The time is right,” Beltzner said. Moffatt said any changes to the south end’s truck route would likely result in more options for trucks rather than a total elimination from Bridge Street and the village.
Hunt Club Road will be a viable option once it is connected to the 417, he said, and the Strandherd-Armstrong Bridge needs to be considered. “We’ll find a way to work with the trucking community to relieve some pressure and spread it out,” he said. TRUCK CALMING
Beltzner is also calling for a speed reduction from 80 kilometres per hour to 60 km/h on Bankfield Road between Main and Prince of Wales, as part of his “program” to reduce trucks through the village. Beltzner said a study of that section of Bankfield found that one in five, or 20 per cent, of all vehicles were heavy trucks.
“That is way out of line with any other truck routes in the rest of city,” he said, asserting that the road was not made for that kind of volume. Newer roads like Earl Armstrong, however, have been built to higher standards, he said, and are more suitable for heavy truck traffic. The poor infrastructure leads to increased vibrations and noise for nearby residents, which Beltzner said can cause hearing loss over time when the trucks are going 80 km/h. He said reducing the speed to 60 km/h on Bankfield would cut noise and vibrations and encourage trucks to take alternate routes. Moffatt said he has had some complaints about speeding on Bankfield, but it’s not supported by data and
he has not had complaints about noise or vibrations. “Some residents think I’m not listening, but I need evidence and I also need overwhelming support for the change,” he said. Beltzner’s master plan to get trucks out of Manotick rests on making Bridge, Main and Bankfield “less comfortable” for the big rigs. Along with reducing Bankfield’s speed limit, he wants to add parking and cycling lanes on Bridge, and to turn the village’s major intersections at Bridge and Main, Main and Bankfield and Bankfield at Prince of Wales into roundabouts. “It will give some truckers the idea that Strandherd’s 10-lane-wide bridge will be an easier way to go,” he said.
A NOT-FOR-PROFIT COMMUNITY MRI FAST, HIGH-QUALITY AND COMPREHENSIVE MRI SERVICES Tired of waiting for your MRI? Our current wait times are three weeks or less. Brain, Spine, MSK, Body, Pelvis, and Breast MRI There is NO COST to OHIP insured patientsWSIB, Military, and Insurance company patients welcome
Open Evenings and Weekends Call to inquire about our short wait times 613-384-1220 776 Blackburn Mews East, Kingston, ON www.kingstonmri.com
R0011663159_1011
Referring Physicians: Stay tuned for INTELECONNECT; Easy web based access to reports and images on your iPad or iPhone; Critical results notifications by email R0011651673
EMC news – As the city prepares its 2013 draft budget, Manotick Village Community Association president Klaus Beltzner is pushing to have a truck route study added to the list. While the $250,000 comprehensive study would be a city-wide review, Beltzner’s motivation is to help his own village solve its longstanding problem of too many trucks using Bridge Street, Main Street and Bankfield Road on their way to Highway 416. He said many roads and the developments around them have changed in south Ottawa since the city’s last truck route review in 2005, and there are gaps in the system – leaving almost all trucks in the area rumbling through Manotick. Limebank’s designation as a truck route is spotty, and the Woodroffe connection at Prince of Wales is due to be closed. Earl Armstrong has changed from a rural twolane road to a four-lane urban arterial – prime truck route potential, he said. With the Strandherd-Armstrong Bridge due for completion sometime next year, the only way to get the new bridge and its connecting roads on to the city’s official truck route is through the study. Adding these roads, he said, will help share the load between communities. “I’m not looking for a total elimination of trucks from Manotick, I’m looking for a sharing of the roads,” he said.
Beltzner said he wants to deal with this issue now before it grows into a situation like the one on King Edward Avenue downtown. “We’ve already seen how bad planning resulted in King Edward being a fiasco. The people on King Edward have had to bear these heavy trucks and all the chaos and loss of life it led to,” he said. Transportation committee chairperson Marianne Wilkinson supports including the truck route study in the transportation master plan scheduled for 2013, but Beltzner said he has met resistance from other councillors such as Barrhaven Coun. Jan Harder, who represents residents on the west side of the new bridge. Harder could not be reached for comment by press time.
Ottawa South EMC - Thursday, October 11, 2012
43