King fine-tunes its transportation master plan

May 27, 2015 · 0 Comments

By Mark Pavilons
King Township’s long-awaited Transportation Master Plan (TMP) is going back for some last-minute fine-tuning before getting its stamp of approval.
King councillors, concerned over terminology and specifics, asked staff to tweak the plan, and bring it back to council for the next meeting.
The comprehensive planning tool, the first for King, is a large-scale strategy. Starting from square one, consultants and staff had to build the plan from road analysis to long-term strategies.
Some councillors were concerned about naming some King roads as “collector routes” and the mayor wanted alternate routes (bypasses) for both Nobleton and King City highlighted in the plan. As well, the mayor wanted changes to a list of potential roads to be “uploaded” to York Region.
CAO Susan Plamondon said a short delay in passing the TMP is okay, but time is of the essence. She wants to make sure staff fully appreciate the concerns raised by councillors.
“Staff will bring back something that’s responsive to council’s needs,” she said. “It’s important to get it right and be the document council wants it to be.”
The reason there is some time constraint is there’s a need to pass the Township’s new development charges bylaw. The current one expires in September and there are interwoven links within the TMP.
Councillors all praised the work done by staff and consulting firm WSP Canada Inc., in developing the plan.
Councillors were concerned about potential solutions to the current traffic woes, which include calming measures (speed humps) and other physical improvements.
Councillor Cleve Mortelliti said he didn’t see a “cogent plan” to deal with truck traffic, contained within the TMP.
King resident Dennis Mooney appeared before council, noting there seems to be a lack of vision in this document.
Mayor Steve Pellegrini said the Township has always had a vision for addressing traffic woes, including bypasses for Nobleton and King City.
The Township has so many balls up in the air at the moment, including reviews of the Official Plan and local community plans. He wants to make sure the TMP is comprehensive enough to address some peripheral issues, including uploading certain roads to regional government. While he’s not a fan of this, there are a couple in the municipality that would be on the list, namely the Caledon/King Townline.
Eric Peissel, an urban planner with WSP, made a lengthy presentation to council about the TMP and its findings and recommendations. He did say there is more current study data that can be added to the plan.
The TMP provides many policies and guidelines that will serve as the official “road map” to develop a sustainable, functional and optimized transportation network within King. The plan will be used to help guide King in making improvements to the capital plan, development charge bylaw and a consideration to uploading some key roads to York Region.
The TMP has identified areas that need improvement locally, in terms of both the level of service and potential connecting links.
The TMP has been two years in the making. Work on the TMP began in April of 2013 and two public information centres were held in King City, Nobleton and Schomberg to encourage resident input.