Reconnecting Jamestown is city's #1 active transportation priority

A consultant is just starting work on a new active transportation master plan for Sault Ste. Marie, but City Council has tonight placed the cart before the horse, indicating it already knows what it wants.

At Monday night's City Council meeting, councillors voted to designate a connection to the old west end, and James Street area to be their top priority for future spending on the Hub Trail.

A resolution prepared by Ward 3 Coun. Matthew Shoemaker and his Ward 4 counterpart Rick Niro, approved by council eight-to-three, directs city staff to prepare a route for the Jamestown connection in anticipation of available funding.

"Essentially, all this does is ensure that in our active transportation master plan, the project is considered the highest priority of council," Shoemaker said.

"When the next available funding envelope is opened, we can have our ducks in a row to make that connection and re-attach part of our community that's been isolated by construction of Carmen's Way twenty-some years ago."

"It cut off that neighbourhood from the rest of the area. This would be a good way to bring them back into having an easy and safe connection into the downtown area," Shoemaker said. 

"We probably need to see it sooner than later," added Coun. Niro.

But Mayor Christian Provenzano and two councillors voted against the resolution.

Ward 3 Coun. Donna Hilsinger thought Shoemaker's resolution was "a very good idea" but said she was "really struggling" with calling something the highest priority before the citywide transportation master plan is finished.

Ward 5 Coun. Corey Gardi said Shoemaker's resolution seemed to be pre-empting the consultant's recommendations.

"I think it is a priority," Gardi said. "I don't know that I would qualify it as the highest priority as it relates to the Hub Trail. I won't be supporting it."

"I think we're gaming the system a little bit here," added Mayor Provenzano.

"We have asked for this study to be done. This study will be done. That assessment will come back to us, and we can prioritize that any way we see fit."

"I don't see it being responsible to prioritize it in advance. I think you're essentially influencing the study prior to the study being done."

If the transportation master plan recommends a Jamestown connection as a second or third priority, council will still be able to set it as top priority for political or policy reasons, Provenzano said. "To me, I don't know that you want to start a study by telling the people that will be doing the study what their conclusion has to be."

"I don't think that anyone disagrees that this is an important priority for the city," said Don McConnell, the city's director of planning and enterprise services.

Said McConnell: "We have just retained the services of an extremely well-qualified consulting company to do a comprehensive plan for the city as a whole. Regardless of the findings of that plan – and I'm sure that James Street will be very close to if not at the top of that plan – council always has the ability to simply say: 'No, this is what we want to do first.' That's fair. That's council's job."

"Many of the projects we've done recently, like Bay Street and the extension of the Hub Trail along Third Line to Black Road, are done as part of other capital works projects. There's considerable cost savings involved with those," McConnell told the meeting.

"The report's going to look at the city as a whole. It's going to tell us what our best opportunities are, and council always has the ability to say: 'This is what we want to do first.'"