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What is the east-west connector and why is Summerside budgeting $5.5 million for it?
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SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — After 20 years of consideration, the Metropolis of Summerside intends to proceed with the primary part of the east-west connector street venture.
It’s a venture that readers have in all probability heard of however could not know a lot about.
Here is what we all know to date
What is going to it price?
- Town has dedicated $5.5 million to Section I of the venture within the 2023-24 fiscal yr.
The place?
- Metropolis planners say a brand new arterial street is required to attach Water Avenue east within the Wilmot space to the northern a part of town close to the uptown purchasing district.
Why?
- Site visitors research have proven that between 5,000 and seven,000 vehicles per day enter town via Water Avenue east simply to show onto MacEwen Highway, heading in the direction of the cluster of companies on the north finish of Granville Avenue. These are along with hundreds extra autos that use the street to entry the downtown and companies alongside Water Avenue east.
What is going to it do?
- Town says a brand new street would assist cut back visitors on the congested parts of Water Avenue east and open almost 300 acres of what’s now largely agricultural land for growth. Basically, it’s room to develop for a metropolis that’s more and more discovering itself operating out of developable land inside its borders.
What has been the holdup?
- Town had two choices for find out how to proceed with this venture. The primary was to stay establishment and let gradual growth by non-public pursuits get the street constructed. However leaving the venture to personal builders might delay it indefinitely, or it might be completed subsequent yr. All of it is dependent upon the whims of the open market. The opposite, extra expedient possibility, which town has determined to maneuver forward with, is to construct the street at taxpayer expense and progressively recoup the fee via growth charges and new property taxes from related growth.
Why now?
- Metropolis employees have, for years, suggested that the development of the street must be a precedence for town. To assist make the venture extra financially palatable, they’ve proposed constructing it in two phases, dividing the job roughly in half.
What is going to it appear to be?
- In complete, the street could be about two kilometres lengthy, with a further 300-metre part that might hook up with Jillian Avenue. Every part of the venture can be about one kilometre lengthy. In a current council briefing, town’s chief administrative officer, Gordon MacFarlane, stated that now that the Pope Highway and Central Avenue roundabout venture is full, which was a precedence for the earlier council, employees could be stressing the necessity for the east-west connector.
So, now what?
- Apart from the truth that there may be cash within the finances to construct the primary part of the street, town has launched few different particulars of this venture as it’s nonetheless comparatively early within the planning course of. We all know that town has dedicated the funds to construct at the very least half of the street, however it nonetheless wants to find out which half to construct first. The municipality additionally has a proper of means on the varied properties alongside the route of the brand new street, so expropriations and different possession points shouldn’t be a significant component.
Colin MacLean is a municipal reporter with the SaltWire Community in Prince Edward Island. He could be reached by e-mail at [email protected] and adopted on Twitter @JournalPMacLean.
