Highway access designs discussed at MTO open house

by Laurel Campbell

Feb 20, 2008

POWASSAN – The Ministry of Transportation (MTO) continues to eye up Hwy. 11 property for purchase as it studies new access along the corridor at Powassan.

Mayor Bob Young and Powassan councillors were among the large number of local residents and business owners who attended an (MTO) open house at the Powassan legion on Feb. 12. The ministry presented four options for new access into the town off of Hwy. 11. One option met the mayor’s approval and one caused council and business owners some grave concerns.

A proposal to put an interchange at Hwy. 11 and the English/Loxton Line and a grade separated access (bridge) from Purdon Line on to Main Street “is the one I like the best,” said Young. “It leaves a lot of potential to develop the area along the service road after the highway improvements are completed. I think it would be great to see some new businesses in the area, and that would be a real benefit in drawing people into the downtown business area as well.”

The bridge at Purdon Line also pleases Young because “it addresses the safety concerns that council and residents have brought to the MTO’s attention on a number of occasions.

We’ve been asking for them to make that corner safer, and this plan would certainly do that.”

The only fly in the ointment of the mayor’s vision for how this option would provide for new commercial properties along the new service road that will be created from the current Hwy. 11 northbound lanes, is the fact that the MTO has already bought a number of the properties where the development could take place. MTO spokesperson Lisa Parott told Young that once the highway work is finished, the MTO could put the properties back on the market.

“The original owners would be given first right of refusal, and then the property would be turned over to the Ontario Realty Corporation which has the second choice of selling the land,” she said. “If the corporation doesn’t want to do that, the land would then be the responsibility of the MTO to decide if it wanted to list it for sale and at that point the municipality and adjacent property owners would be approached first.”

Young said he was concerned that, with the highway completion date as far away as 10 years, and the MTO continuing to eye the remaining Hwy. 11 accessed properties for purchase, “the municipality is not only losing businesses, we’re losing tax revenue as well. We’re the ones taking the financial hit for the government’s decisions. I think the MTO should turn the property over to the municipality in lieu of those back taxes.”

Although Parott would not comment on Young’s suggestion, she said “there are a lot of different angles to be considered and we have to look at each specific property before we make a decision.”

Although she stressed that the MTO “was not actively pursuing property purchases along the Hwy. 11 corridor,” she did admit it was hoping to purchase the Maple gas station and the Beaver Lodge Motel and Restaurant, “on a willing seller basis” but added “I’m not saying that couldn’t change (to expropriation) in the future.”

Rakesh Kumar, owner of the gas station, told the News “while I really don’t want to sell, it’s starting to look like an option. What I would like to do is to renovate my building and property, make it more attractive, but without knowing what the new highway access will look like or what the MTO is going to decide, I’m in limbo, so maybe I should sell.”

A second access design option calls for a flyover at both Loxton Line and Prudon Line, but does not allow for a new interchange off the highway.

“That means our only access would be at the current Clark Street overpass,” said Young, “and that’s just not acceptable. That doesn’t do anything to bring traffic into town at all.” Councillor Gerry Giesler went so far as to add, “the only thing that option will bring into town is tumbleweeds.”

Two additional options were presented at the open house. One closed off both Purdon and English lines at the current Hwy. 11 crossings, building a new connecting road between the two just west of the current Hwy. 11 southbound lanes and putting an interchange on and off the highway in the middle approximately where the Maple gas station is now located. The other shows an interchange at Purdon Line and a flyover the highway at English Line connecting to the new service road.

Along with plans for the various access options, the MTO also presented several different options to allow for a service road along the highway into Powassan including building new northbound lanes in the current median between the north and south lands or converting the current southbound lanes for north flowing traffic and constructing new southbound lanes along the MTO-owned property immediately west of the highway.