{"id":38013,"date":"2026-04-23T14:45:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=38013"},"modified":"2026-04-23T14:45:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:45:26","slug":"yonge-street-active-transportation-corridor-moves-forward-amid-budget-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/yonge-street-active-transportation-corridor-moves-forward-amid-budget-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Yonge Street Active Transportation Corridor moves forward amid budget questions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A multiuse path on the west side of Yonge Street in Aurora\u2019s south end is poised to move forward this month amid an increase in costs to make it happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local lawmakers gave their tentative approval to adjust the budget for the Yonge Street Active Transportation Corridor by an additional $2.53 million for a total of $7.861 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The corridor will take the form of a multiuse path, accommodating pedestrians and cyclists, on the west side of Yonge from Bloomington Road northward to Industrial Parkway South, with a sidewalk running parallel on the east side of the street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Region of York has committed to fund 50 per cent of the construction costs for the multi-use path, up to $2.8 million, but the increase in budget remained a sticking point at last week\u2019s Committee of the Whole meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost of us, when we first got the report, were quite surprised, at least I was, to see the increase in the overall budget,\u201d said Ward 4 Councillor Michael Thompson, asking staff to share a memo on the costs. \u201cFor the most part, I thought we would have had a good grasp on the linear cost of sidewalk installations, we do them every year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expanding on the memo, staff said the project has \u201ca lot of moving parts,\u201d not the least of which is the fact that Yonge Street is considered a Regional Road in this stretch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnfortunately, we just don\u2019t have the real estate\u2026 on the east side, so we did the next best thing and moved forward with a sidewalk,\u201d staff said. \u201cIn order to be considered a multi-use path, you have to be four metres in width, so we do have room for that on the west side. We moved forward through a multi-criteria analysis and with input from the public through two picks to determine that that was the best use of funds to do a sidewalk on one side and a multiuse path on the west side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight now, the multi-use path on the west side is a lot more technically difficult to construct. It\u2019s almost double the cost of the sidewalk. We also have to do some upgrades to the intersection, which is the Region intersection at Industrial Parkway South and Yonge because now we\u2019re going to have a crossing there.\u2026 all these pieces are all movement. The extra complexity too is that once you tender [the project], it depends on who\u2019s available to bid, what the labour situation is at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Regional support of the project, replied Councillor Thompson, is a key factor in moving forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom my perspective, it\u2019s important to move forward,\u201d he said. \u201cI can tell you that I\u2019ve had a number of residents from Delmanor specifically who have reached out to me over the last year or two, speaking to the fact that there is no sidewalk there. It\u2019s hard for them to traverse Yonge Street. They go north to the shopping plaza and they are eagerly waiting and anticipating a sidewalk \u2013 in this case, a multi-use path \u2013 being built because, for them, with their mobility challenges, it is extremely difficult sometimes to navigate. It\u2019s a longstanding piece in terms of our sidewalk policy to be able to do these connections. We have an opportunity to take advantage of the Region funding over and above it, so I support it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, Ward 3 Councillor Wendy Gaertner said she has also had requests from residents for a navigable path in this area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m in full support for this program because active transportation is part of a connected community and every quality community is a connected community and the people in the south have not had the pedestrian opportunities that others have had, and it\u2019s growing there,\u201d agreed Ward 1 Councillor Ron Weese. \u201cI think we need to do something of this nature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Ward 5 Councillor John Gallo said he was in support of the project in and of itself, he said more scrutiny needs to be done on how estimates could have been so far off the mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI need a better understanding of how this happened, considering the roads are there and how much could York Region or any unknowns have come up that we couldn\u2019t have figured out beforehand what the costing was, and how do we fix this? How do we get a better sense of\u2026 I\u2019ve been here 14 years and it\u2019s happened time and time again that we budget and then we have to increase by many percentages,\u201d he said. \u201cAlthough we have many, many capital projects and the vast majority we get right, these big ones come back, and we\u2019ve built many, many sidewalks and roads in this Town, I fail to see how this is an anomaly in budgeting and then the reality is we\u2019re that far off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In supporting this project, Mayor Tom Mrakas noted that $4.5 million of the project\u2019s total cost will come from development charges earmarked for roads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s exactly why we collect development charges,\u201d said Mayor Mrakas. \u201cIt is to build infrastructure in our community. This is much needed infrastructure in our community, so $4.5 million from development charges and $2.8 from the Region, I\u2019ll be in favour of moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

A multiuse path on the west side of Yonge Street in Aurora\u2019s south end is poised to move forward this month amid an increase in costs to make it happen. Local lawmakers gave their tentative approval to adjust the budget for the Yonge Street Active Transportation Corridor by an additional $2.53 million for a total […]<\/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":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38013","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\/p3D2k4-9T7","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-09 15:34:22","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\/38013","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=38013"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38014,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38013\/revisions\/38014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}