Latest news about everybody's favourite Great Northern Road bypass

When we last talked to you 10 months ago about Blake Avenue, we called it a rat run, using the United Kingdom expression for a residential back street taken by drivers to avoid rush-hour traffic on main roads.

Blake Avenue is the preferred route used by Sault drivers to bypass Great Northern Road gridlock between McNabb and Oryme, particularly for velocitators wanting to avoid the stoplights at Wawanosh Avenue.

But there are concerns among Blake Avenue neighbours for the safety of pedestrians, seeing their street has no sidewalks.

On Tuesday, Sault Ste. Marie City Council will be asked to consider upgrading Blake Avenue to Class A status, with sidewalks, curbs, gutters and sewers.

That will open the door to traffic-calming measures.

Currently, city procedures require that a street have at least one sidewalk before speed humps can be considered.

In November 2019, there was talk at City Council about allowing access to Great Northern Road businesses from Blake Avenue.

"My preference in the future would be for automatic approval of business entrances/exits onto Blake once it is upgraded to a Class A road," Ward 3 Coun. Shoemaker told SooToday on Friday.

The following is the full resolution placed on the agenda of next week's City Council meeting, which will be livestreamed on SooToday starting at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Although councillors had recently been holding 'hybrid' meetings with some members in the council chambers and others teleconferencing, Tuesday's meeting will be a virtual-only gathering out of concern for rising levels of COVID-19 across Ontario.

Blake Avenue

Mover: M. Shoemaker
Seconder: Councillor L. Dufour

Whereas for many years businesses in Great Northern Road have been acquiring properties on Blake Avenue to widen their lots and provide access to their customers or visitors to an alternate exit onto a less congested street; and

Whereas neighbours on Blake Avenue have been concerned that if businesses from Great Northern Road gain access to Blake Avenue, it will cause safety concerns for pedestrians as Blake Avenue is a Class B road with ditches and without sidewalks; and

Whereas in 2019, when discussing the request of a local business owner that fronts on Great Northern Road for access onto Blake Avenue, council rejected the request of the business owner, believing that providing access onto Blake Avenue would be better to do when Blake Avenue was upgraded to Class A services; and

Whereas council has deferred the Sackville Road extension project and staff is currently undertaking a prioritization process for remaining deferred projects from the current capital transportation plan;

Now, therefore, be it resolved that staff bring forward a plan for the upgrade of Blake Avenue to Class A services to be considered in the capital transportation plan.