CELEBRATING THE DEMISE OF DOUGALL DEATH TRAP
Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet.
But Windsor did more than that when it fixed the infamous Dougall Death Trap — way more.
The new underpass for pedestrians and cyclists is not only a safe and comfortable way to navigate the CN Rail tracks at Dougall Avenue. It’s actually scenic, with trees, bushes, ornamental grass, cedar mulch, big rocks and decorative lights. It even has small areas to stop and rest.
It’s way better than I expected. It’s not just utilitarian. It’s got style.
It’s not big. It’s only 32 metres. All in, it only goes from South Cameron Boulevard to Ouellette Place. But it not only allows pedestrians and cyclists in South Windsor to use a main corridor, it connects them to downtown.
And it changes the face of a main corridor into the city and downtown.
Small space. Big impact. Dougall is four lanes of traffic squeezed through the concrete sides of the rail overpass. No sidewalks. No bike lanes. And 48,000 motorists a day. It was a no-go for pedestrians and cyclists, unless you’re a thrill seeker.
For decades, almost half a century, people called for the city to fix it. But it was expensive. The new pedestrian and bike underpass, along with reconfiguring and installing traffic lights at Ouellette Place, north of the underpass, the most dangerous non-signalized intersection in Windsor, cost $9 million. Money is always the first problem.
And it was a big hassle — years of study, planning and co-ordination, as Mayor Drew Dilkens said at the opening two weeks ago. It took monumental negotiations with CN to be able to close the tracks long enough to build the underpass. The city and Amico Infrastructure got 48 hours over one whirlwind weekend last November to remove a section of track, dig eight metres and drop in a series of concrete culverts to snap together.
And that was after the plan was derailed (excuse the pun) twice because of bad weather and then potentially threatened because of a strike at CN.
A whack of money. A big hassle. That’s why it took decades to do this.
Here’s to council for biting the bullet.
Here’s to doing it right.
And here’s what the city can address to make it even better.
If you’re heading north from South Windsor, there’s a lot to navigate to reach the underpass. There are no bike lanes on Dougall, so I rode on the sidewalk on the west side. But that sidewalk ends at the Comfort Inn. So I turned around on the hotel ramp — after almost turning into a car that was turning into the hotel. I returned to West Grand and crossed Dougall to the sidewalk on the east side. That sidewalk is dotted with a bench, bus shelter and street-light poles. It’s like an obstacle course.
Then I crossed back to the west side of Dougall at the U-haul. A path along the west side crosses multiple on- and off- ramps for the E.C. Row Expressway. Some have lights. Some don’t. Watch out.
The path turns west along South Cameron, leading to a crosswalk at Northwood Street that takes you to the underpass. A big sign and a painted crosswalk tell vehicles to stop for pedestrians. One stopped, two didn’t when I crossed. One driver who didn’t stop offered the wave, the one that says, “Excuse me for almost plastering you to my grill but I have somewhere to be.”
When you reach the south end of the underpass and path at Ouellette Place, “you’re toast,” as Bike Windsor Essex executive director Lori Newton says.
You can’t continue north on Ouellette because there are no bike lanes and no sidewalks. There are no bike lanes on Dougall there, either, but at least there are sidewalks. But they soon end, reappearing periodically, like so many in Windsor. Why do we do that?
If you still want to get downtown, you have to make it south to Eugenie and then east to Ouellette, where the bike lanes on Eugenie start. You can take those bike lanes east to Mcdougall Street, which also has bike lanes, and head north again. But the bike lanes on Mcdougall stop before downtown. You can go west again, to Windsor Avenue, and then north again on Windsor. It doesn’t have bike lanes, but it’s quiet and everyone is supposed to share the road.
“People get stranded and have no idea where to go and are terrified,” Newton said of our disjointed bike routes.
But at least the Dougall Death Trap is dead.