{"id":26064,"date":"2020-02-27T23:17:41","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T04:17:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26064"},"modified":"2020-02-27T23:17:50","modified_gmt":"2020-02-28T04:17:50","slug":"traffic-infiltration-addressed-in-master-transportation-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/traffic-infiltration-addressed-in-master-transportation-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Traffic infiltration addressed in Master Transportation Study"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Council is once again\nraising the issue of promoting Industrial Parkway for use as originally\nintended: a Yonge Street bypass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Signage to promote\nIndustrial Parkway, which begins at Yonge Street in Aurora\u2019s south end, before\nending at St. John\u2019s Sideroad, as a bypass of Aurora\u2019s busiest thoroughfare,\nwere explored by Council last week as they examined the Town\u2019s proposed new\nMaster Transportation Study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study, which was\nformally presented to lawmakers at last week\u2019s General Committee meeting,\nshines a light on options to address the infiltration of traffic into\nresidential neighbourhoods abutting Yonge Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also takes into\naccount traffic originating from neighbouring municipalities like Newmarket and\nKing diverting through residential streets in Aurora in order to avoid major\narterial roads and intersections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study found that\nAurora Heights Drive and Mark Street are currently being used as commuter\nroutes for this \u201cexternal traffic\u201d looking to avoid Bathurst, Yonge and\nWellington, while Centre Street \u201cremains used as a pass-through route for\nexternal traffic\u201d despite morning peak restrictions and one-way conversion\nbetween Spruce and Wells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Internal traffic was\nexplored as well and the study found that Mark Street is also being used by\nAurora residents to bypass the Yonge and Wellington intersection, while\n\u201cinternal traffic\u201d was using Centre in a similar way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It notes Elderberry\nTrail in Aurora\u2019s south end, is also being seen as a traffic cut-through, a\nsituation that could benefit from continued monitoring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cConcerns can\npotentially be addressed by improvements at the Yonge-Wellington intersection,\u201d\nsaid Michael Bat, Traffic Analyst for the Town of Aurora, in his report to\nCouncil, adding that moves to create a right-hand turn lane for southbound\nYonge Street traffic at Wellington will help alleviate the situation. \u201cThese\nimprovements are critical to mitigating pass-through traffic volumes east of\nYonge Street, including improving operations for all movements at the\nintersection which may be achieved through the proposed southbound right turn\nlane and\/or implementation of a road diet concept.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Council members\nquestioned whether a solution might also be found in going back to basics on\nIndustrial Parkway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor Tom Mrakas, for\ninstance, asked whether the study had taken a closer look at the possibility of\nlane configurations on Industrial not only to allow for bike lanes but a\ndedicated lane that can be allocated to northbound or southbound traffic\ndepending on peak traffic times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe did not look\nspecifically at that as a major issue,\u201d said project manager Jonathan Chai.\n\u201cWhen we looked at the traffic demands of the Town, we didn\u2019t see any major\nissues, particularly on Industrial Parkway, with respect to peaking. That could\nbe addressed more at the intersections because those tend to be the major\nbottlenecks where you could have dedicated turn lanes, which I believe are\nthere today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Mayor Mrakas said\nit was worth taking a closer look, particularly where Industrial Parkway North\nmeets St. John\u2019s Sideroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think as we grow\nand as we continue to grow, we\u2019re going to find struggles as far as handling\nthe traffic volume that is going to [come] as we intensify throughout the\nTown,\u201d he said. \u201cThat traffic is going to have to go somewhere and I think a\nlot of people are travelling [to get] to Wellington and the 404. They\u2019re coming\nfrom up north, Newmarket, East Gwillimbury and they\u2019re travelling down St.\nJohn\u2019s. If we don\u2019t make Industrial Parkway an ideal place for them to come off\nof Yonge and get down to where they\u2019re going, they\u2019re going to continue down\nYonge and I think that is going to be more problematic as we start to\nintensify.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Sandra Humfryes agreed, adding that signage earmarking Industrial Parkway as a Yonge bypass was \u201ccritical.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Council is once again raising the issue of promoting Industrial Parkway for use as originally intended: a Yonge Street bypass. Signage to promote Industrial Parkway, which begins at Yonge Street in Aurora\u2019s south end, before ending at St. John\u2019s Sideroad, as a bypass of Aurora\u2019s busiest thoroughfare, were explored by Council last week as they […]<\/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-26064","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\/p3D2k4-6Mo","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-01 08:37:52","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\/26064","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=26064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}