The Province of Ontario will be dispensing $830,552 towards improvements of two intersections on Hwy. 7. More specifically, Main Street North at School Lane in Acton and Guelph Street and Sinclair Avenue in Georgetown.
Acton will be getting $110,702. The remainder, $719,850, will go to Georgetown. The funding comes from the Ontario Government’s Connecting Links Program, a pool of money designated for Ontario municipalities for road improvements.
A connecting link is “a municipal road or bridge that connects two ends of a provincial highway through a community or to a border crossing,” said Ministry of Transportation spokesperson Simi Ikotun. “There are 114 connecting links in 77 Ontario municipalities with a total length of 352 km., and 70 bridges.”
The reason the Town of Halton Hills chose the Acton intersection is simple. The corner is a mix of traffic lights and a stop sign on the School Lane side. Pedestrians can push a button to turn the traffic light to red, allowing them to cross. This configuration is called an intersection pedestrian signal in transportation parlance.
Robert Little Public School is just up the road on School Lane. This represented a safety issue for the children in the area, spurring the Town to act.
“It is a key crossing we have for students and it is also key for the buses and traffic for the school itself,” said Commissioner for Transportation Bill Andrews. The hope is to “replace the current intersection pedestrian signal with a fully signalized intersection.” This means there will be signals for all four directions.
Siena Ancker moved to Acton from the Netherlands in the 1950s and lives near the intersection. She is generally content with the way the street is configured. But when told about the change, she said she thinks “that’s a good idea.”
For Guelph Street and Sinclair Avenue, the Town hopes to replace the lights because they’re, according to Andrews, “currently nearing the end of their useful life. We will also be adding a turn lane on Sinclair as well.”
Active transportation is in the mix. A multi-use path is planned for Sinclair Avenue, which will allow cyclists, pedestrians, rollerbladers access to the area.
"We had put in a section of multi-use path on Sinclair from Mountainview (Road South) to Duncan. We’ll be extending that all the way over to Guelph Street,” Andrews added.
While there is a minor road widening needed on one side of the intersection, Andrews says “there will be no loss of sidewalk” or “any major impacts to pedestrian facilities or utilities.”
The Town projects that the Main Street North and School Lane project will start in July. The goal is to get it done by the time the kids are back at school.
“That is the current plan if the supply chain holds up,” Andrews said.
The Georgetown project will likely start in late May or early June. Just like with the School Lane construction, the Town hopes to be finished before the back to school season.
