{"id":15594,"date":"2016-10-19T17:17:51","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T21:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15594"},"modified":"2016-10-19T17:17:51","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T21:17:51","slug":"inside-aurora-interchange-of-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/inside-aurora-interchange-of-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"INSIDE AURORA: Interchange of Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI see that Council is pushing the Region to speed up the construction of a new interchange at St John\u2019s Sideroad and the 404.\u201d
\nI glanced across the table at my friend John, who was looking at last week\u2019s copy of The Auroran.
\nHe took another sip of his coffee, and continued.
\n\u201cThey\u2019ve got it all wrong.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d I asked. \u201cThat\u2019s been planned for a long time, and really makes sense now. I mean, look at all the development on that side of Town. An interchange will make it easier for people to get around.\u201d
\n\u201cBut Council doesn\u2019t want that.\u201d He swivelled in his chair to look at me.
\n\u201cThey think they do, but they don\u2019t.\u201d
\nSeeing my puzzled expression, he asked, \u201cWhat\u2019s been the biggest traffic issue in Aurora for years, apart from parking?\u201d
\n\u201cSpeeding, I guess.\u201d
\n\u201cExactly. Look at all the measures that have been introduced just to deal with that issue. First there was the northeast quadrant several years ago, and all the expensive traffic calming features that went in…\u201d
\n\u201cAnd out.\u201d
\n\u201cYes,\u201d he smiled, \u201cand out.\u201d
\nHe continued, counting off on his fingers.
\n\u201cThere are ongoing discussions to reduce Yonge Street to one lane each way south of Wellington, and increase street parking there and in Library Square. Speed limits have come down across Town. These digital electronic signs showing how fast you\u2019re driving over the speed limit are everywhere. They\u2019ve trying to get the police to provide more enforcement. They\u2019ve plugged in more stop signs and traffic lights. They\u2019ve even painted and put interlocking brick in some crosswalks to slow cars down.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd it says right here,\u201d he tapped the newspaper in front of him, \u201cthat Council just accelerated the installation of new speed humps on Kennedy, Mavrinac and McMaster.\u201d
\n\u201cEverything,\u201d he concluded, \u201cdesigned to slow things down.\u201d
\n\u201cCouncil\u2019s spent tens – probably hundreds – of thousands of dollars over the years to encourage traffic to move as slowly as possible through Town, with no end in sight.\u201d
\n\u201cYes,\u201d I agreed. Not sure where this was going.
\n\u201cBuilding a new off ramp at St. John\u2019s will just help speed the entry and exit of more vehicles in and out of Town. That\u2019s counterproductive to what they\u2019ve been trying to do.\u201d
\n\u201cIn fact, what they really should be considering is to push the region to take out an interchange.\u201d
\n\u201cClose off the one at Bloomington, for example,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you did that, anyone wanting to enter or leave Town via Highway 404 could only do so at Wellington.\u201d
\n\u201cBut that would be chaos!\u201d I exclaimed.
\n\u201cIn what sense?\u201d
\n\u201cWell, you know how busy that area is already. With everyone forced through there the whole east side of Aurora would become a big bottleneck.\u201d
\n\u201cSo?\u201d he prompted.
\n\u201cTraffic would be congested to a crawl, and …\u201d
\n\u201cYou mean it would slow down?\u201d
\n\u201cWell, yes…\u201d
\n\u201cWithout any extra enforcement, new signage or expensive traffic calming?\u201d
\n\u201cUm…\u201d
\nI wasn\u2019t sure how to counter that. Strange as it seemed, he had a point.
\n\u201cGranted,\u201d he concluded, taking another sip of coffee, \u201cit may not solve speeding everywhere in Town. They\u2019d need to think of ways to further congest things on our northern, western and southern borders.\u201d
\n\u201cBut it\u2019s a start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feel free to e-mail Scott at: machellscorners@gmail.com<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston \u201cI see that Council is pushing the Region to speed up the construction of a new interchange at St John\u2019s Sideroad and the 404.\u201d I glanced across the table at my friend John, who was looking at last week\u2019s copy of The Auroran. He took another sip of his coffee, and continued. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-43w","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-03 16:40:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}