THUNDER BAY - Local truck drivers, business owners, and contractors want the city to hit the brakes on a proposed new bylaw that would see truck traffic rerouted in the city.
The city of Thunder Bay is proposing a new designated truck route that would create weight restrictions for truck traffic on city roads, including Dawson Road and Arthur Street.
On Thursday, a public meeting was held to collect feedback from businesses and contractors who would be impacted the new bylaw.
“My main concern was Highway 102 and Arthur Street,” said Blair Scott, a former truck driver. “It’s been like that for years and now they want to change it. Now we are going to be a city in the country of Canada that is going to be telling people from all over Canada where they can only go in our city to get through it and that part I don’t like. I feel like they are almost being a bully in the park.”
Under the proposed new bylaw, any vehicle weighing more than 15,000 kg must use the designated truck route and will not be permitted on other roads. Some exemptions will be made for vehicles making deliveries to businesses within the city.
Two corridors into the city, Highway 102/Dawson Road and Arthur Street, would be restricted to vehicles under 15,000 kg, which raised concerns for business owners on those routes. The bylaw was brought to city council on Mar. 27 and again on Apr. 21.
The new designated truck route was requested by city council after concerns were raised about safety. But according to Ryan Love, traffic technologist with the city of Thunder Bay, those concerns were not limited to only one area.
“We get concerns from every area, not one specific area,” he said. “I don’t think it’s fair to say that it is the result of one specific corridor that had concerns. I don’t think it’s fair to say Dawson Road is the reason this is being looked at being implemented and the same thing with Arthur Street.”
During the public meeting on Thursday, concerns raised about the new bylaw included safety for motorists and truckers as a result of funneling heavy truck traffic down the Harbor Expressway.
“The next concern I had was when I’m heading down the expressway is the Oliver Road lights,” Scott said. “Those are another scary set of lights because you have too much of a run at it, you don’t know how long the light has been green.”
Scott argued that trucks turning onto Highway 102 have to pass through two sets of lights on Dawson Road before actually getting to highway speed, which is safer for motorists.
“I don’t believe it will increase truck traffic tenfold on any specific corridor,” Love said. “I also don’t believe it will eliminate truck traffic 100 per cent on any corridor.”
Other concerns involved business owners and contractors conducting business within the city. Louis Nadin, president of Nadin Contracting, said restricting how heavy vehicles can access the core of the city will greatly impact the delivery of goods.
“Now with these designated routes, a lot of the trucking time and turnaround time will probably be increased by half an hour, so that is adding anywhere from $50 to $75 per load and that will be directly passed along to the consumer or the city contracts or anyone having a use for our products,” he said.
“We’ve been in the construction industry for over 30 years and we feel the way it’s been and is today is sufficient to address weight restrictions throughout the city with the existing posted weight restrictions,” Nadin added.
Both Scott and Nadin feel that based on the feedback shared during the meeting on Thursday, the bylaw is in need of significant changes.
“I think the bylaw written up will be amended quite intensely to satisfy our concerns,” Nadin said.
“I think they have a long ways to go on their bylaw route yet,” Scott added. “I don’t think they have it right yet and there are a lot of people saying that the trucks were here first. They have a long ways to go to get it straightened out.”
A second public meeting will be held at the Oliver Road Community Centre on May 31 from 4-6 p.m. Love said the city will look at the feedback collected during the meetings and move forward with any possible amendments to the bylaw.
“We looked at the city as a whole and how we could best serve the city if this was to be implemented,” he said. “Based on what we heard today, there could be some more routes going into a certain area, whether it’s north or south and the concern we heard today about coming in from the west.”
