{"id":23428,"date":"2019-04-04T19:26:43","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23428"},"modified":"2019-04-04T19:26:52","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:26:52","slug":"council-looks-for-alternatives-to-aurora-heights-public-school-area-sidewalk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/council-looks-for-alternatives-to-aurora-heights-public-school-area-sidewalk\/","title":{"rendered":"Council looks for alternatives to Aurora Heights Public School\u2013area sidewalk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would the Aurora\nCommunity Centre parking lot be a safer place to drop off Aurora Heights\nstudents while improving traffic and parking congestion in the streets\nsurrounding the school?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is just one of\nthe questions Council is considering as they look for alternatives to a\nproposed new sidewalk on Kitimat Crescent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following last week\u2019s\nGeneral Committee meeting, Council is poised to vote down a recommendation for\na new sidewalk on Kitimat, following opposition from the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Money for the\nsidewalk — $100,000 \u2013 was allotted in the 2018 Budget by the previous Council,\nciting improving the walkability of school routes, but neighbours say this\nsidewalk proposal misses the mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKitimat Crescent was\nreconstructed in 2001 and at that time the Town did not have a sidewalk\ninstallation policy,\u201d said Anca Mihail, Manager of Engineering and Capital\nDelivery for the Town, in her report to Council. \u201cThe residents were surveyed\non the construction of a sidewalk on the street and the majority of them\nopposed the installation of a sidewalk. As a result, Kitimat was reconstructed\nwithout a sidewalk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe sidewalk\nconstruction on Kitimat Crescent was proposed by Council in 2016 as a result of\nthe School Travel Planning Program implemented for Aurora Heights Public\nSchool, which sets out mechanisms to allow for student pedestrian priority,\noutside of Kitimat Crescent road construction. There is enough room to\naccommodate a sidewalk on both sides of the street, however staff have proposed\nthe sidewalk construction on the north and west part of the street to minimize\nany impacts to existing vegetation and utilities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Town hosted an\nopen house on the proposed sidewalk last September, which was open to residents\nof all 41 homes on the street. 23 residents came out and two further residents\nsent in written comments, along with a petition signed by 38 of the 41\nhouseholds opposing the plan, citing loss of parking, street trees, yard space\nand property values. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only note of\nsupport came from the local crossing guard who serves the area, who said\nKitimat was a popular place for parents to drop off their kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The community\u2019s\nviewpoint was represented at the Council podium last week by neighbour James\nHoyes, who said it was a sidewalk to nowhere and had \u201cserious flaws\u201d including\nchallenges to users of wheelchairs, walkers and other devices as a sidewalk\nwould slope towards the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following Mr. Hoyes\u2019\ndelegation, Councillor Sandra Humfryes shared her own experiences in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said she observed\na number of challenges while on the ground and didn\u2019t see the Kitimat sidewalk\nimproving the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll these parents\nare dropping their students on Tecumseh and in front of the school there is\nabsolutely no stopping and no parking.\u201d She said. \u201cThey have four volunteers\nthere asking parents to stop and rush the kids out and move the cars along so\nthe kids are safe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Citing the newly\nconstructed GO Transit parking lot on Industrial Parkway South, which has a set\nof stairs leading up to the transit station parking area, she questioned\nwhether a similar path could be constructed between the school and the nearby\nAurora Community Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know it is a steep\nhill, but I would love if staff could look at engineering a path from the ACC\nback towards the school\u2026so the kids can be safely dropped off by their parents\nand walk back out,\u201d she said. \u201cI believe that will eliminate all the parking\nconcerns. This is the only way we can stop the stuff that happens, instead of\ninvesting in a sidewalk there. I just don\u2019t think that is the right thing to do\nnow. The parents have come here time and time again about the safety issues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some\nCouncillors said they still had questions remaining over accessibility issues,\ninvestigating alternatives in the short term and, in the long term,\nreconsidering sidewalks on Kitimat when the street is due for reconstruction in\n2032, won the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt would make sense\nthat if we\u2019re going to do it to do it in 2032,\u201d said Councillor Harold Kim. \u201cI\ndon\u2019t think a sidewalk is a solution just for the sake of meeting the policies.\nI think it is great to follow the ad-hoc rules, but it is also prudent to\nfollow practicality. Spending $100,000 on a sidewalk that is not going to be\nused on many occasions doesn\u2019t seem like a prudent course of action for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Rachel\nGilliland had a similar viewpoint on the sidewalk, adding, \u201cit may not solve\nall the issues we\u2019re trying to achieve here, which is the safety of the\nchildren exiting the cars and going to school. I don\u2019t know 100 per cent the\nsolution and I am not comfortable moving forward with that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Tom Mrakas was\nalso in favour of investigating alternatives and reconsidering the matter in\n2032.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI suggest that we go\nwith the alternative in our report, which is to wait until that reconstruction\ncomes and we can talk about a sidewalk at that time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Councillor John Gallo: \u201cSurely if the vast\nmajority are not for it, there doesn\u2019t seem to be a rationale to do it, but I\nwould be in favour of sending this back to staff to explore alternative routes\nto get the kids to school.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Would the Aurora Community Centre parking lot be a safer place to drop off Aurora Heights students while improving traffic and parking congestion in the streets surrounding the school?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-65S","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 21:20:57","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\/23428","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=23428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}