YOU SAID IT
“It would enable pedestrians and cyclists to avoid the intersection of Grand Lake Road, Highway 125, and the SPAR, which is very busy and very pedestrian and bicycle unfriendly.”
SYDNEY — The Cape Breton Regional Municipality active transportation committee released its “wish list” of projects Wednesday.
The project list includes just over $800,000 in spending on shoulder paving on the Sydney Port Access Road, additional amenities for the reconstructed Greenlink trail system off Rotary Drive, bike lanes on George Street, the installation of benches and bike racks, and construction of a connector path to the Mayflower Mall once an overpass is built across Highway 125.
In the spring, the Greenlink trail system will undergo a $425,000 upgrade. Although the work will only begin in a few months, the funding was provided in the 2011-12 fiscal year.
Included in the proposed 2012-13 budget is an additional $160,000 for landscaping and benches on the Greenlink trail.
Another project that will be completed this year due to cash shortfalls in the current fiscal year is shoulder paving on the SPAR at a cost of $150,000.
It was identified as a high priority due to several accidents involving cyclists on the road. However, the CBRM has yet to receive approval from Railamerica for the railway crossing upgrades, said Cape Breton Regional Municipality planner Rick Mccready.
The Department of Transportation’s plan to build an overpass connecting Upper Prince Street to Cowbay Road, which is located on the east side of Highway 125, will be part of the extensive highway twinning project.
Mccready put forward a recommendation that $425,000 be identified in the budget for a 700-metre connector path from Cowbay Road to the Mayflower Mall.
It will be a key link for the proposed Grand Lake Road multi-use path, which is still in its preliminary stages, he said.
“It would enable pedestrians and cyclists to avoid the intersection of Grand Lake Road, Highway 125, and the SPAR, which is very busy and very pedestrian and bicycle unfriendly.”
He said design of the path is being done by the transportation department and is almost complete.
Other expenditures in this year’s active transportation budget include $50,000 for a Renwick Brook tunnel engineering study, another $50,000 for a rural trails study, and $30,000 to carry out a feasibility study looking into the possibility of establishing a pedestrian ferry between Westmount and downtown Sydney.
Mccready said spending will be dictated by the amount of money that can be obtained from the provincial and federal governments. Cape Breton regional council will also have to approve its share during budget talks this spring.
Over the past three years the CBRM has financed its active transportation projects through three-way cost-sharing, with each level of government contributing $333,333.
In the first year of the active transportation plan, the budget actually exceeded the estimated $1 million amount, with largerthan-expected contributions from the province and Ottawa.
As this fiscal year comes to a close, the municipality had to curb its spending on active transportation projects as less money came in from the senior levels of government.
“The money is coming from a variety of different programs and funding sources. They have different criteria, they have different funding deadlines, so it’s not that we haven’t gotten support,” Mccready said following Wednesday’s committee meeting.
The money has been used to upgrade walking trails, signage, park benches and development of signature projects such as the Whitney Pier Heritage Trail and the Westmount walking loop.