It’s a partial victory for Harding Street West residents who want trucks moved back to Ready Street next door.
Council has voted to make both streets truck routes as a way to split the truck traffic between them.
Staff considered four options: keep Harding Street West as the truck route, move the truck route to Ready Street, allow both streets to be truck routes, and ban trucks from both streets.
The city’s Tim O’Reilly says they quickly realized that moving the truck route to Ready Street wouldn’t work.
“It’s too narrow,” says O’Reilly. “The two intersections at either end are not very good for turning trucks.”
After discussions with trucking industry representatives, O’Reilly says they liked the option of allowing both streets to be truck routes.
Councillor Blake Armstrong says that option is perfect because many of the trucks that use Harding Street West will now turn to Ready Street, which has fewer people living on it.
City staff say reconfiguring Simms Corner is still the best answer so westbound trucks can get to Fairville Boulevard, and council voted to consider including funding in the 2019 capital budget for a detailed design.
We asked Councillor Armstrong if he thinks reconfiguring Simms Corner will ever become a reality.
“Absolutely not, you’ll never get this council to ever vote to spend money on Simms Corner,” says Armstrong. “All they’ve got to do is look at the traffic results — there’s hardly any accidents. I saw one, maybe 45, 50 years ago.”
