After a last-minute pitch from the Connect the Creek Committee on Monday, the city's operations committee overruled a staff recommendation and supported a proposal to put a pedestrian crossover on Regent Street near the GSU building.
Former Sudbury Mayor David Courtemanche, chair of the committee, said completing an 18-km trail along Junction Creek is the culmination of decades of work by many people to transform the waterway. Once home to garbage and other contaminants, volunteers have spent years cleaning up the creek.
“People saw the potential,” Courtemanche said, and today it “has become a beautiful resource in our community.”
Residents are thinking differently now, he said, and place a higher value on walking and cycling, rather than just roads with cars.
But there's frustration that while you're enjoy trails, users are suddenly confronted with a major road to get across.
While there are two signaled crosswalks several hundred meters away, he said it goes against human nature to walk another 400 metres to cross a 10-metre road.
“A detour, in our opinion, is not the solution,” Courtemanche said. “Those systems will get used once they are connected. That's really what drives ... this request. We need a safe connection on Regent Street.”
Infrastructure GM Tony Cecutti said staff support the trail and the goals of the group, but is trying to strike a balance between driver and pedestrian safety.
Chief among their concerns is having traffic back up to Killer's Crossing, an already busy area in one of the most complicated intersections in Canada.
“There's no lack of desire on the part of staff to make Connect the Creek work,” Cecutti said. “We believe they're real potential consequences. It would be a risk management situation.”
If council OKs the crossing, it would be something they would watch closely.
Ward 9 Coun. Deb McIntosh wondered if there was enough room on that section of Regent to put in a pedestrian island to make it easier to cross. When told there wasn't enough land, she suggested a pedestrian crossing, similar to the one recently installed on Brady Street next to Tom Davies Square.
McIntosh said they are cheaper than fully signaled pedestrian crosswalks, such as the one on Ste. Anne Road, and are cheap to remove if they don't work out.
She said lack of connectivity is a big issue when it comes to pedestrian trails, since people won't walk the extra distance.
“And running across four lanes is a very scary thing,” McIntosh said. “We have a vision for the city, and it's to connect it for cyclists and walkers. So I hope the committee will consider this.”
In the end, the committee voted in favour and staff will return in April with a report on what installing the crossovers in that section of Regent would entail.
