With phase one of the city’s Laclie Street reconstruction project underway, confusion and traffic chaos abound on neighbouring streets, say residents and business owners.
Kelly Lawless, a resident on Matchedash Street North, said high volumes of traffic have been racing through his neighbourhood while work unfolds along Laclie Street between Neywash Street and Borland Street East.
Lawless said the increased traffic on the residential street has led to numerous near-misses and occasional accidents along his street.
“This is the quietest street in Orillia, this street right here, and now it's the busiest,” Lawless told OrilliaMatters.
“The speeding that goes on from North Street down to Brant, there's no stop signs, they're ripping like they're on Laclie Street … and (recently) there was a pretty big accident down at (the intersection with) Brant,” he said. “That was a pretty bad accident. Somebody could have been killed.”
With a bus stop, bike route, and the nearby Hillcrest Park in the area, Lawless has numerous concerns about safety, given how narrow the street is compared to the city’s arterial roads.
He said it can be dangerous for parents to load or unload their kids at Hillcrest Park, explaining he recently saw a cyclist narrowly avoid a collision with a contractor’s truck.
The numerous ‘local traffic only’ signs in the area have led to confusion for many drivers as well, Lawless said.
“People see this orange sign, local traffic, so they're kind of confused with it there,” he said. “If people want to go down around those orange signs … they can’t make the turn because somebody's coming up, and they’ve got to stop once again in the middle of Matchedash to make the turn.”
Lawless questions why the city doesn’t redirect traffic along an arterial road, like West Street North, which runs parallel to Matchedash.
“It doesn’t make sense. Just let the buses through and local traffic and block it,” he said. “(They) should be sending the traffic up to West Street, which can handle that load. This morning I saw an 18-wheeler go up here. What the heck?”
Sam Dong, who runs Royal Oak Restaurant on Laclie Street, said traffic confusion has impacted his business.
“We heard from a customer that it's hard for them to get in, and some people kind of get lost and take extra time to find a way in,” he said. “It's not very clear which road’s blocked, which one’s not.”
Dong said he estimates business is down 15-20 per cent over its pre-COVID numbers, and he said the restaurant still only offers takeout – in part because of the construction along Laclie.
Business has also taken a hit due to construction along the waterfront, he said.
“We lost a lot of the boating customers; we used to deliver to the piers a lot,” he said.
With phase one of the Laclie Street reconstruction project scheduled to end in November, Dong said he hopes to offer in-restaurant dining once again by late fall or Christmas.
Ward 4 councillor Janet-Lynne Durnford said the city is well aware of the traffic concerns, stressing that city staff are working to mitigate any issues.
“(Coun.) Tim Lauer and I met with … city staff early in July when we first heard the concerns, and staff immediately changed a couple of things,” she said. “Part of it is acknowledging that because there is a detour and Laclie is closed, that traffic is going to increase, but we want to ensure it's safe.”
She said the city has reprogrammed traffic signals at Laclie and North Street to mitigate traffic build-up taking place at the intersection in order to “keep things moving,” and installed a speed display sign at Hillcrest Park along Matchedash Street North, which has gathered both speed and traffic data the city is currently analyzing.
“It's very much on our radar. Coun. Lauer’s aware of it, city staff are aware of it. The traffic study’s been done, (and we’re) waiting for analysis,” she said. “The whole purpose of that traffic study is to see if there's anything else we can do to make sure that that traffic is safer along Matchedash.”
Durnford also said the city is looking at the two-way stop intersections along Matchedash Street, where drivers on Matchedash have the right of way.
“The cross streets that have a stop sign at the cross street, from my own observations on Matchedash, (were) causing some confusion about who had the right of way at those, if it was a four way stop or a two way stop, but the street is closed,” she said.
“There was some confusion there, so the city's also looking to see if there needs to be some changes made there to ensure that those intersections are safe.”
