SAULT STE. MARIE — On the west side of Sault Ste. Marie's Peoples Road, there's a section of asphalt sidewalk that goes north from Third Line and inexplicably comes to an abrupt end, nowhere in particular.
It goes as far as a house at 1495 Peoples Rd., then stops dead just before Greenwood Cemetery.
An attempt to get the sidewalk to nowhere extended as a far as Fourth Line met a cold shoulder at this week's city council meeting.
Back in March, Ward 4 Couns. Stephan Kinach and Marchy Bruni persuaded their council colleagues to have city staff take a look at the situation there.
"The sidewalk currently ends at the cemetery in the middle of the street," the councillors argued.
"This is a school route for children and safety is an issue, particularly during winter," they said.
"Peoples Road from Third Line to Fourth Line is a rural collector with both paved and gravel shoulders, and ditches. It was resurfaced in 2018," Maggie McAuley, municipal services and design engineer, said in a report prepared for this week's city council meeting.
"Typically, rural cross-sections do not include sidewalk; however, an asphalt footpath was extended on the west side of Peoples Road from Third Line north to the last house, civic 1495.
"The cross section of the road includes a 1.3-metre asphalt shoulder, 0.8m gravel shoulder, two-metre ditch, and a 1.4-metre footpath. The footpath is located behind the ditch.
"North of civic 1495 to Fourth Line is Greenwood Cemetery, approximately 400 metres in length. The west side of the road in this area is a two-metre paved shoulder and a 2.9-metre gravel shoulder. There is no ditch system. This portion of the road also includes a bus stop near Fourth Line."
"Since the road section adjacent to the cemetery does not have a ditch and the gravel shoulder is used to direct the surface water south to the ditch system, it is not recommended that a concrete sidewalk or asphalt path be installed the gravel shoulder.
"It is not unreasonable for pedestrians to utilize paved and/or gravel shoulders when walking in a rural setting. It is therefore recommended that pedestrians continue to use the paved shoulder, which surpasses the minimum recommended widths for shoulders on rural cross-sections.
"The overall width of the paved shoulder could be expanded when the road is resurfaced in the future," McAuley recommended.
Carl Rumiel, the city's director of engineering, said the cost of extending the sidewalk would be approximately $165,000, not including any needed curbs.
City council accepted McAuley's report as information and did nothing to fix the sidewalk to nowhere.
