Guelph City Council has approved a “guiding document” that calls for $12.3 million to be spent over the next 10 years on adding to and upgrading the city’s trail network.
Six staff recommendations regarding the Guelph Active Transportation Network Design Guidelines and Feasibility Study were passed by council at its Monday night meeting.
Staff will be prioritizing the projects to be done and including them in the annual budget process for both the public to have their say and for council to make their decisions.
There was only one dissenting vote on the six recommendations, that coming from councillor Bob Bell on the main motion to accept the study.
Bell, a staunch supporter of the trail system, voted against the study because he didn’t feel it went far enough in providing safe trails, a sentiment echoed by two delegates at the meeting.
“The plan is advocating a network that I don’t think is accomplishing the goals I’m looking for,” Bell told his fellow councillors.
Bell said there were too many risk and safety issues for his liking, most revolving around the proximity and intersecting of the trail system to roads and walkers and cyclists having to cross roads.
He said the plan was “half the loaf of bread” and it’s “time to get the full loaf.”
Allister McIlveen, the city's Manager of Transportation Services, responded that “we don’t design unsafe facilities” but that there was not an open-ended bucket of money with which to do things.
“We do the best we can,” McIlveen said.
In addition, the city approved spending a total of $271,000 a year to maintain the entire system, including winter maintenance, once fully implemented.
The city already spends over $170,000 a year maintaining the trail system. The additional money would be for new trails and for trails not currently maintained year-round.
Mayor Cam Guthrie said he wanted reassurances that the trail sections being maintained in the winter are actually being used.
Staff and council agreed that the city was endorsing an “organic,” “living” and “visionary” document that could shift and change over time. It was not a detailed work plan.
Connecting the trail system to the city’s west end via a tunnel under the Hanlon Parkway and looking into the relocation of the pedestrian crosswalk on Gordon Street at Water Street were two specific changes that were endorsed by council Monday, but that doesn’t mean those projects will happen any time soon. It just puts them on the radar.
“We need to move forward on the visionary part of it first,” said Coun. Leanne Piper in regards to deciding which projects get priority.
“Without a plan, nothing will happen,” added Coun. June Hofland.
