Community groups worry about changes to street system
By HEATHER MCLAUGHLIN
mclaughlin.heather@dailygleaner.com
Published Thursday June 7th, 2007
Appeared on page A4
Twenty-five years of waiting will soon be over, but the construction of the Westmorland Street Bridge ramp brings with it changes to the city's street system.
Those changes aren't going to make everyone happy.
Tonight at the Ducks Unlimited offices at 752 Union St., a public meeting will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. to show the plans for street reconfiguration and design.
Fredericton Heritage Trust, Fredericton North Heritage Association, St. Mary's and South Devon neighbourhood associations are calling their own public meeting June 12 at 7 p.m. at the Kinsmen Community Centre on School Street to talk about the city's planning.
The heritage groups are stirred up because the city intends to demolish the 1882-built McFarlane-Neill building at the corner of Union and St. Mary's streets.
More recently, the building was owned by Atlantic Rentals and MacLean Sports.
Mike O'Brien, councillor for the Ward 3 Fulton Heights-North Devon area, said the plan to demolish the building isn't new.
Three years ago, O'Brien, city staff and the local MLA at the time met with the neighbourhood association and outlined a concept plan for the street changes.
"We talked about the potential for truck traffic to be routed off Main Street to St. Mary's Street and the possibility that the building couldn't be retained," O'Brien said.
The St. Mary's Neighbourhood Association had no objection to removing the building at that time.
"That guided the direction for the city," O'Brien said. "Recently, there's some interest groups interested in retaining that building."
Those groups are welcome to express themselves, O'Brien said, but the new plans for the bridge ramp, the widening of Devonshire Drive, Cliffe Street and related traffic changes, aren't built around retaining the structure.
The open house today will show traffic design details and indicate where street widenings will be.
The city has already spent $500,000 to purchase property and begin basic design.
Another $1 million will be spent over the next three years to complete the street reconfigurations.
O'Brien said the provincial government is calling tenders to construct the missing northeast arm of the bridge this year. The bridge system won't open until next year, when the final work to reconfigure the lower end of Cliffe Street and Devonshire Drive is done.
The city's major traffic study five years ago indicated that the opening of the bridge ramp will take between 3,000 and 4,0000 vehicles per day off Union Street between the Westmorland Street Bridge and Cliffe Street.
Union Street residents, who have lived with truck traffic noise for years, will be able to adjust to a quieter atmosphere and lifestyle, O'Brien said.
But the neighbourhood groups holding their own public meeting next Tuesday, say rerouting logging trucks onto St. Mary's Street between Union and Maple isn't a good idea because it's a narrow residential street.
O'Brien said it may take a few more years, but ultimately a realignment of Route 8 and the extension of the Marysville bypass will take truck traffic off Gibson Street.
"The permanent solution is the outer ring road, but that's a generation away," O'Brien said.
In the interim, the city measures will help to ease the transport truck problems.
The city's recently revised municipal plan has set, as one of its goals, elimination of truck traffic through the north side residential downtown.
"We think we've got a real solid plan. It will help traffic flow and economy of the city," O'Brien said.
---
[Opinion: Maybe I'm not understanding the traffic pattern they're describing, but why would trucks go up St. Mary's between Union and Maple? If they're coming off the bridge and want to go north, wouldn't they get off at the Two Nations Crossing exit? Trucks coming from Devon Lumber would probably be better off going up through Marysville or Barkers Point to the Princess Margaret anyway.]