Burying wires on Bethune St. deemed too costly

A $40-million plan to convert Bethune St. into a linear park isn’t likely to include the burying of overhead electrical wires after all – city staff says it’s too expensive.

Burying the wires would likely cost $13.5 million, states a new city staff report to councillors. It’s so expensive, says staff, that it could sink the entire Bethune St. project.

The plan is to transform Bethune St. for 12 blocks, from Townsend St. to Dublin St., into a long, linear park: instead of cars, there would be cycling tracks and gardens.

The city plans to do this following the installation of a new sewer system along Bethune St. (the $27-million cost will be split between the city, the province and the federal government).

Instead of rebuilding Bethune St. as it looks today, council decided to hire a firm – AECOM – to design a linear park.

That’s expected to cost $40 million, but the city won’t be paying all at once. Construction is expected to start later in 2017 and take about eight years to complete.

Then again, city staff cautions against adding further costs to the bill. Adding this $13.5-million cost of burying electrical wires “might cause the entire streetscape plan to fail,” states the staff report.

Councillors are expected to discuss leaving this out of the plan at a meeting at City Hall on Monday.

They will also consider making another change, too: city staff is recommending that Brock St. not end in a cul-de-sac at its intersection with Bethune St., just east of Hutchison House Living Museum.

But officials at Hutchison House didn’t want the city to block off Brock St.; it would make it harder for cars or tour buses to bring visitors to the museum.

The new city staff report suggests nixing the cul-de-sac and keeping the east-west vehicular traffic along Brock St., just as it exists today.

Bethune St. still wouldn’t have cars along that particular stretch, though: it’s going to mean cars travelling east-west along Brock St. will have to cross a cycling track at Bethune.

The designers say that detracts from the “linear park atmosphere,” and they don’t recommend making the change.

Then again, it also mitigates potential confusion for everyone using Brock St. City staff is recommending the change.

Meanwhile, city councillors will also consider improvements for Charlotte St. between Aylmer St. and Park St.

This section of Charlotte St. needs to be dug up to add a sewer main; that’s expected to happen at roughly the same time as the Bethune St. sewer work is being done.

Although council isn’t considering dramatic change for Charlotte St., certain improvements are being recommended by staff.

Burying the overhead wires along this section of Charlotte St. would cost $850,000; since it’s so much less expensive to do it here than along Bethune St., city staff is recommending it.

But they don’t recommend bike lanes for this section of Charlotte St.

Adding bike lanes would mean losing a lot of on-street parking, the report to councillors says, and the area cannot afford it since there are plans to convert the Louis St. parking lot into an urban park. Don’t forget to check The

Examiner’s website on Monday night for a livestream of the meeting, as well as tweets. The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m.