The back alley lane behind the municipal office will remain closed after council recently decided not to take action on administration's recommendation to open it in a limited capacity.
Operations manager Jim Hall updated council during the Jan. 21 meeting, and said once Main Avenue is repaved, it will adequately serve local business and residential traffic in the area.
“When we’re finished Phase 2 this year, it’ll be a nicely non-potholed road and a much wider area for trucks to go,” said Hall.
During the Dec. 3, 2018 meeting Coun. Paul Isaac had raised the issue after being approached by some business owners who were requesting the back alley behind the municipal office be kept open.
“I wasn’t advocating for it to be open or closed, I was just bringing that back,” said Isaac, adding he had also received a letter from a resident who wanted the lane to remain closed.
“There’s pros and cons to having it open or closed,” he said, suggesting a survey to better analyze what businesses and residents want.
Hall said he’d had the opportunity to speak with the business owners who had concerns, and that he explained what the impacts are on adjacent residents.
“People can’t keep their windows open in the summer and it gets pothole-ridden because it’s a stormway,” he said, adding that as the operations manager, he did not see a need to keep the back lane open considering Main Avenue will soon be upgraded.
“It’s one of the few lanes, if not the only one that I can think of in my mapping, that has some residents with homes on a back lane that sees commercial trucks and industrial vehicles,” he told council.
The locked gate can be opened when required and also protects the TransCanada right-of-way from motorists “bombing along,” he said, adding the only people who are impacted are drivers seeking to cut through.
Although administration’s recommended action was for council to authorize “a change to the traffic movement for the rear lane located south of Main Avenue West between Sixth Street and Seventh Street SW” — in other words to establish a restricted local traffic only lane — council decided a previous motion carried in 2016 to keep the lane closed stood.
Hall’s report on the alley was accepted for information.
