Last night at the Evinrude Centre was the third and last Public Involvement Centre (PICs) meeting. The City of Peterborough showed Morrison Hershfield's recommended Road Network plan, Cycling Network plan and Pedestrian Network plan.

The new Masterplan is an update to the 2002 Transport Plan to address Peterborough's population growth and traffic concerns.

Studies have shown that streets with no sidewalks have 2.6 times more pedestrian collisions, so the new plan calls for sidewalks on both sides of all new and existing streets.

Work is already underway as well on both the Hospital Access Road extension and to widen the West end of Lansdowne, but there is plenty of other planned—and suggested—roadwork to come. Indeed, $14 million is budgeted to improve the Nassau Mills Bridge over the Otonabee River, widen Nassau Mills from Water to Armour, make improvements to Chemong/Reid, the Charlotte Westbound Parking lane conversion, and to widen Eastbound Sherbrooke.

As we previously reported, many residents of Fairbairn Ave were very interested in the City's Medium term plans to build a two lane road from Fairbairn to Cumberland. Some consider it the City trying to still put through the Parkway Extension.

[Related: For coverage of the proposed changes to Peterborough's Trail Network as part of the Peterborough Network Cycling plan, head to TrailSwag, a blog about outdoors news in Peterborough and the Kawarthas.]

[Contributed by PtboCanada's Evan Holt]

Tip us at tips@ptbocanada.com. Follow us on Twitter @Ptbo_Canada.

There were more than 40 people in attendance Monday night as Peterborough's James Burrett introduced us to the continued work by the City of Peterborough on moving traffic through our city. The main issue that keeps creeping up every ten years or so, he pointed out, is the intended Parkway route. Recently, City council endorsed a $52.3M roads plan that included a two lane road as part of the Northern Parkway extension route. James was heavily involved with the Parkway Referendum and believes this:

"There is more to a community than just how much time it takes to get from Point A to Point B."

Derrick Foley has volunteered to help with public awareness and says that there will need to be 5,000 to 10,000 signatures to make City Hall recognize the issue. What was odd, it was pointed out, was that so much money was going towards this extension route and yet not one of the ten highest accident intersections are being improved. As was pointed out:

"What is $52 million dollars going to solve when we don't really need this? We are a very green community. Tell your councillors that this makes no sense."

The City of Peterborough and Morrison Hershfield invite you to the third and last Public Involvement Centre (PICs) being held June 28th from 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Evinrude Centre to seek input on the following:

Phasing of the previously recommended Road Network Improvements.
Trail/cycling network improvements.
Key policy initiatives to support transit, active transportation and transportation demand management.

[Contributed by PtboCanada's Evan Holt]

Tip us at tips@ptbocanada.com. Follow us on Twitter @Ptbo_Canada.