Prince Edward County council got a look at the draft transportation master plan at Tuesday night’s council meeting.
The transportation master plan, much like the cycling master plan, is a comprehensive plan designed to help guide the municipality in implementing long term transportation infrastructure in the county.
The plan identifies some issues in the county through surveying, studies and site assessments and provides recommendations on certain topics.
WSP engineering and consulting representative Brett Sears presented the draft plan to council and explained the purpose of the document.
“It is a long range blueprint on how to implement the transportation network. You’ll see we’ve looked at all modes of transportation as part of this work. It’s a living document that is typically updated on a regular basis every five years or so to adapt to different policies, different priorities, different changing of population employment or different items like that. It is a long term vision it’s not expected to be implemented overnight.”
To compile data and information while making the plan, the firm surveyed 82 people online and held multiple public information sessions, one in the summer of 2020 and one in the fall. There were also studies and site visits conducted.
Sears identified some of the hot button issues that were identified through the research.
“To hone in on some of the items that we heard about in terms of some of the hot spots, we’re going to address Sandbanks, the Picton Town Hill intersection, a truck bypass in Picton, we’re going to address those in a moment, and recognizing that we’re all living within financial constraints.”
When it comes to Picton Town Hill, there were a few different avenues presented on how to address the issues with that intersection.
The short term solution is putting in pedestrian crossings and the long term solution is putting in traffic signals. The county was recently approved for funding through the province in order to make serious improvements to Picton Town Hill which will be done before the end of the year.
When it comes to traffic congestion in the area of Sandbanks, Sears said that the province’s recently implemented online parking reservation system for Sandbanks was the best solution.
“I know the mayor just had announced in the last 30 days or so that the province is implementing a reserve parking for advance for day use. I think you can reserve up to five days in advance. We think that, really, is the best way to handle this. It’s not really an infrastructure, for the county, concern. It really is a supply and demand and just the processing of people entering the park.”
Sears said that another item of concern was increased traffic on Picton Main Street, including large trucks. He said that, after consultation with local business owners and the Picton BIA, they’re recommending no immediate changes. Sears said that unless things get worse, they don’t recommend making any drastic changes, but that if it does worsen, the option of a bypass to the north could be looked at.
At the end of the presentation, Sears said that the next steps for the transportation master plan include a council endorsement, a notice of study completion followed by a 30-day public review, the finalization of policies and the finalization of a review of 15 intersections in the county.
