The Recorder
MINDEMOYA—Mayor Gerry Strong and Central Manitoulin councillors Gloria Haner, Ted Taylor, Pat MacDonald and Beverly Cannard met with Darren Stevenson representing the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) on May 5. Mr. Stevenson informed council that he is in a temporary position with MTO in the operations office responsible for the Algoma area and has worked for 15 years in the planning and design section of the MTO.
Council hoped that this meeting would resolve some long standing issues with the downtown four corners area of Mindemoya, the site of one serious traffic accident and many near misses.
Mr. Stevenson began his remarks to council by saying that he recognizes that there is a lot of evolution in the MTO office which has led to confusion over meetings and emails. He went on to say that he would answer and document concerns and if he didn’t have the answers, he would get them answered, to which mayor Strong said, “we have serious concerns about the four corners. We would have liked to have the traffic people here today.”
Mr. Stevenson told councillors that he does not have a lot of knowledge about the extent of the concerns and was told that there have been a lot of concerns over time and that there is ‘a lot going on’ at one small intersection, including kids and buses.
Mr. Stevenson then asked, “What is the biggest concern?” to which Mr. Strong said, “the key concerns for us are kids and their safety.”
“And seniors,” added Councillor Haner. “I was here when that motorcycle hit the school bus. We have been trying for four years, since I came on council, to get something done,” to which Mr. Stevenson replied, “I will ask the traffic division how long it will take to get things done.”
Several Island bus personnel attended the meeting including Robert Brown of Brown Buses and Mr. Shamess of A.J. Bus Lines, who spoke of the problem with visibility in the four corners area and how the school sign by Jake’s Furniture affects vision. Another concern brought forward was the problem of large vehicles parked in front of Jake’s and the dip in the road that interferes with driving if people are coming from the Providence Bay area. The comment was also made that what the bus drivers are hearing from people is that something has to be done before a serious accident takes place.
In answer to a question raised by Councillor Haner, it was noted that four buses go through the intersection every day with one carrying on to M’Chigeeng.
Mr. Stevenson was reluctant to approve measures such as adding more stop signs or red lights, instead saying that it was better to do things incrementally. “It makes sense to me,” he added, “to have the stop signs where they are now. A four-way stop is not warranted.” To this Mayor Strong said, “Constable (Mike) Corrigan pointed out the problems with having a four-way stop. Basically, we are trying to improve what we have now.”
School board trustee Larry Killens was at the meeting and said he was offended by two things that Mr. Stevenson said. The first being that an election would make a difference “when you are talking about the safety of kids,” as Mr. Stevenson had said that the provincial election may change things. Mr. Killens also stated, “saying that statistics won’t support a sign or whatever, once again, is not an acceptable answer and one that we have a multitude of ‘near misses’ to support.”
Two other issues were also brought up at this meeting with one being the closure of Highway 542 towards Providence Bay due to blowing snow covering the roadway and interfering with visibility. “The road is a lot worse since you ‘fixed it’,” Mr. Strong told Mr. Stevenson.
Councillor MacDonald, Denise Deforge and Ruth Frawley talked of the mess that was left along Central Manitoulin highways with the brush cutting that was done. As Councillor MacDonald remarked, the issue was not just the mess that was left but also how it was done. “It was a hack job,” she said.
In thanking Mr. Stevenson for coming to the meeting, Mayor Strong also told him, “we have some real concerns. It doesn’t matter if it is kids or seniors, something has to be done. This has been dragging on for years.”
Mr. Stevenson replied, “concern for safety and visibility, those are two things that I am taking away from here.”
