The city has made progress on bringing traffic lights to the Orchard Point intersection, Mayor Don McIsaac says, but no final approval has yet been given by the province for the long-anticipated project.
The mayor has been “actively” discussing the project with Simcoe North MPP Jill Dunlop and ministry of transportation (MTO) representatives, stated a report to city council Monday. McIsaac said he believes a resolution may be arrived at soon.
In its report to council, however, city staff quoted draft reports it had received from MTO in August, which stated, “The MTO’s policy is to only install traffic signals when warranted … to date, traffic signals have not been recommended or warranted.”
Despite that, the mayor said conversations have been going well.
“I think we're close, and I'm cautiously optimistic this will occur, but to be clear we have no approval yet,” the mayor said at Monday’s council meeting. “We've gone for 30 years now; maybe we can wait another couple of weeks and get the right answer. I think we're probably in good shape.”
The report references a 2022 OrilliaMatters article in which Dunlop stated the stoplights would be installed well ahead of the initial 2028 timeline, and that she had heard concerns from residents about the intersection who consider the area unsafe.
Dunlop, as well, was unable to provide an exact timeline for the stoplights at the time.
In light of the article, council recently voted to permit McIsaac to have conversations with the appropriate provincial officials.
Though no final approval has yet been given for the project, Coun. David Campbell thanked the mayor for his efforts.
“I just want to thank you for your work on this file that last term we worked on, and I'm embarrassed to say got nowhere, and I really appreciate your efforts on this very much,” Campbell said.
“Again, it's not done yet,” the mayor responded. “Staff has done an awful lot of work on this, and it looks like we're close.”
Coun. Ralph Cipolla questioned how the project, if approved, would be funded.
“It's zero (for the city),” McIsaac said. “The understanding I’ve had, based on conversations (with provincial officials), is they invited us to participate financially, and we declined.”
“The cost … was finally acknowledged, with all of the engineering, infrastructure, rehabilitation, all the stuff that they need to put in place. They’ve also indicated they’ll do some traffic calming measures with OPP assistance in terms of monitoring," said the mayor.
