City council wants to know if there’s a Plan B after city staff recommended Monday that a proposed underpass beneath Speevale Avenue connecting the Trans Canada Trail be scrapped.
Council previously directed staff to move ahead with design work with the $3.35 million underpass that would be part of planned bridge reconstruction just east of Woolwich Street.
But as staff began the preliminary policy work needed to move to the design stage they say it was evident the underpass as requested just couldn’t happen within the city’s own policies and Official Plan.
After the staff presentation, much discussion and nine delegations, council voted to defer a decision on the staff recommendation and have staff come back with more information in a month.
“It’s pretty clear where we’re all heading – we’d like to see this underpass built,” said councillor Leanne Piper.
Staff will come back in November with answers to the many questions staff had Monday, legal advice.
Deputy CAO Colleen Clack told council’s Committee of the Whole meeting on Monday that there were issues with several city policies related to its Official Plan, accessibility issues due to the grade of an underpass and environmental issues with the plan as it stood.
“Our recommendation is that the underpass cannot be completed at Speedvale,” Clack said, stressing that staff had to assess the project within the city’s own policy guidelines, plus provincial accessibility guidelines.
“Preliminary routing studies, environmental assessment work and policy review completed for the project have determined that all three criteria cannot be wholly achieved for the project,” says the staff report to council.
First councillor James Gordon, followed by Mayor Cam Guthrie, wondered if staff had looked at other potential solutions to connecting the trail.
“Help us all figure out what direction to give you to get it done,” Guthrie said. “Did you (staff) ever move to ‘maybe we could do this’”?
Clack told council Monday was an opportunity to update council and that staff didn’t want to “presume a work process.”
A city consultant’s environmental impact study by Aboud & Associates concluded an underpass could be done within policy guidelines, with an Official Plan amendment perhaps being necessary.
Councillor Phil Allt wondered what legal liability the city might find itself in if it went against staff’s recommendation to scrap the underpass.
The delegates all spoke in favour of the underpass.
“We don’t reject a project because of complications,” said Stan Kozak. “Infrastructure is being renewed. Now is the time.”
Ken Chupa of the Guelph-Wellington Seniors Association said an underpass would be an “easier, safer and more enjoyable” linkage.
“The need to connect the downtown and Speed River trails is evident now and will only become more evident in the future,” Chupa said.
John Marsden, representing various running groups in Guelph, said the current situation is “frustrating for everybody,” including motorists forced to stop too often at the crosswalk just east of the trail that people use to cross.
“The cost of the project is high … but I think it’s worth it,” Marsden said, recommending an Official Plan amendment if necessary to get the job done.
Mike Darmon, who lives on Riverside Drive, said 78 of the 80 people he asked to sign a petition in support of the underpass did so.
Yvette Tendick of the Guelph Coalition for Active Transportation asked council to enter into the detailed design phase and not “throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
