Editor:
There has been a great deal of discussion over the past several years about proposed road changes in Clearview Township. The issue will continue to draw significant attention in the months ahead as the Niagara Escarpment Hearing Office (NEHO) holds a hearing to determine the fate of Clearview’s applications to upgrade 26/27 Sideroad.
The debate over the road improvements has drawn on for nearly a decade. It’s understandable that there may be some confusion among newcomers and long-term residents about what exactly has being proposed and why. I am writing to clear up some of the recent inaccuracies that have been published about the proposed road improvements and the rationale behind them.
The opponents to the Duntroon Quarry extension (licensed since 2012) are drawing focus away from the important matter at hand, and are instead attempting to direct attention to the road agreement, which would convey a section of Township Road 91 to Walker Industries. This road agreement, and the Duntroon Quarry extension, should not be major factors in the application as they are separate matters from the upgrades to 26/27 Sideroad.
These changes (upgrading 26/27 Sideroad and a portion of Concession 10 North) were proposed by the County of Simcoe and Clearview Township, not by Walker Industries. They were recommended after the Niagara Escarpment Commission (NEC) rejected an earlier proposal by the county to upgrade what was then County Road 91 (now Township Road 91). The recommended upgrade was to accommodate and shift the passenger vehicle traffic volume we see today from Township Road 91 to 26/27 Sideroad between Grey Road 31 and Concession 10. The NEC opposed that proposal based on the impacts to the escarpment brow, natural areas and visual impacts. The upgrade to former County Road 91 also could not be completed within the existing right-of-way and required the acquisition of numerous properties.
The NEC rejection of upgrading Township Road 91 is a critical point that has been left out of the discussion in recent years. Township Road 91 was not designed or reconstructed to support the traffic the road has experienced in the past, and continues to experience today. The solution to close a portion of Township Road 91 satisfied the necessity to reduce the traffic and was the only alternative since the NEC rejected upgrading Township Road 91. The county and township were forward thinking in proposing upgrades to 26/27 Sideroad. They understood the need to maintain an east-west link between Clearview/Simcoe and Grey-Highlands to accommodate and limit traffic to passenger vehicles, emergency services and school buses. The proposed upgrades to Sideroad 26/27 were not based on Walker Quarry truck traffic, which is prohibited from using this road as a haul route.
The proposal to close a portion of Township Road 91 and upgrade 26/27 Sideroad was supported by neighbouring municipalities Grey-Highlands and the County of Grey. It was also endorsed by a Joint Board of the Ontario Municipal Board and Environmental Review Tribunal following a lengthy hearing involving detailed traffic evidence.
While Walker didn’t initiate the road changes as currently proposed, in our view they present the safest and most sensible option. This is based on the wealth of research gathered and presented in numerous studies over the past decade.
At this stage, doing nothing is not a viable alternative. It will not address existing safety and environmental issues on 26/27 Sideroad and capacity issues on Township Road 91. Something needs to be done to rectify the situation, regardless of the NEHO’s decision on 26/27 Sideroad.
For more information about these matters and our Duntroon project, please visit https://www.walkeraggregates.com/clearview-township.
Ken Lucyshyn,
Walker Aggregates
Executive vice-president, aggregates and construction division