City considering new crosswalk
There could soon be a new pedestrian crossover with rapid-flashing beacons installed on Monaghan Road at Gillespie Avenue, near Kenner Collegiate Vocational School.
At a virtual committee meeting on Monday night, city councillors will review a city staff report recommending the plan.
Installation of the flashing beacons, plus new ladder-style markings, are expected to cost $52,000, the report states.
The city staff report says the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board asked the city for a crossover in December 2021.
New studies conducted since then show that about 7,000 vehicles use the stretch of Monaghan Road between Cameron Street and O’Connell Road every day.
Meanwhile, there’s no controlled pedestrian crossing along Monaghan Road between the intersections of Lansdowne Street West and Cameron Street, the report notes — a stretch of 1.1 kilometres.
When the city conducted a pedestrian count, they found that in a period of eight hours, 222 people crossed Monaghan Road in the area — and that for the most part, people were crossing near Kenner at the beginning and end of the school day. Although there haven’t been any collisions over the past five years there involving pedestrians, there have been 14 minor car collisions.
New clinic
There could be a new medical clinic coming to Chemong Road, north of Portage Place mall.
Councillors will consider a staff recommendation to allow the conversion of a bungalow at 1199 Chemong Rd. into a clinic. The property is just north of Milroy Drive, near the Habitat for Humanity office and ReStore.
It has been zoned residential since at least 1960, states the report; that’s the year the bun-galowthere was built. It needs a rezoning to allow a clinic. The applicant wants to convert the building into a medical clinic with three exam rooms, staff room and office — all on the ground floor.
Homelessness report
An update on the Wolfe Street overflow shelter will be delivered to councillors from Sheldon Laidman, the city’s commissioner of community services.
Laidman has been asked by council to offer regular updates on shelter operations on Wolfe Street. Before it opened as a shelter a bit more than a year ago, 210 Wolfe St. had been a city-owned office building.