A transportation consulting firm wants Owen Sound to devote more resources for cyclists and pedestrians to move around in the city, while encouraging more vehicles to go around the city.
Both plans would hopefully alleviate traffic pressures on the downtown and other parts of Owen Sound.
Ray Bacquie — the Vice President of consulting firm HDR/I-TRANS — prepared a new transportation master plan for the Scenic City.
On Monday night — Council agreed to receive and forward it to the city’s operations advisory committee for further consideration.
The plan lists 28 different short, medium and long-term recommendations with a total price tag of 5.1 million dollars.
Many of the recommendations, which are intended to encompass a period of 20 to 25 years, focus on improvements that can be made to existing intersections.
Approximately 3 million dollars would be devoted to the creation and expansion of a “cycle lane spine network,” something that could incorporate a new bridge across the harbour for pedestrians and bikes.
Bacquie says promoting cycling and walking and giving people the means to do more of those activities will promote a healthier community.
And since the infrastructure exists to divert traffic around Owen Sound that likely wasn’t going to stop there anyway – and between 15 and 25 per cent of the city’s traffic fits that bill, according to the plan – the suggestion is to improve signage that encourages through traffic to use Grey County Roads 11 and 18 to the east, south and west.
Other ideas include the review and modification of the city’s transit service, improvements to city taxi services, the creation of a “park-and-ride” shuttle service and an emphasis on the promotion of 8th and 9th Streets as alternates to 10th Street.
HDR/iTRANS considered several alternatives over the two years it spent working on this report. Outcomes for the city ranged from doing nothing at all to building a new bridge across the harbour and adding roads elsewhere in the city.
Bacquie says the bridge in particular has been deemed not feasible because of cost factors and impacts to the environment, neighbourhoods, businesses and traffic patterns.
Mayor Ruth Lovell Stanners also says such a structure is simply not possible due to costs and other priorities facing the city.
