Milton Canadian Champion Article: Derry Rd. underpass could be built sooner than planned.

Snippets:

Residents of west Milton who flooded the e-mail inboxes of regional councillors earlier this year asking for Halton Region to speed up construction of an underpass on Derry Road might be getting what they asked for.

and

“I am relieved and delighted to hear that,” said Milton resident Zeeshan Hamid, who began a petition asking for the underpass in August. “The underpass cannot happen too soon. I hope the council will continue to consider this need a priority.”

but

Wanting to make sure Regional staff weren’t recommending the project be pushed up due to public pressure, Dennison asked Zamojc if the underpass would come at the expense of other higher priority projects

finally

The proposed 10-year capital budget forecast envisions construction beginning in 2012, subject to council’s approval.

So keep up the pressure by signing the petition until the budget is approved!

I have been debating for several weeks whether to do this or not. I have been unsure about the format as well (should we collect signatures and take them to the Council, or have individuals e-mail them?)

Here is the issue :-

There are already thousands of homes west of the CN Rail track on Derry Road. The only practical way to get to the town is to go east on Derry, which requires crossing the tracks. Many trains take that track every day, causing a lot of traffic delay. Once traffic backs up, it takes a long time to clear, especially during rush hours. The situation is getting worse every day as more and more people move. We need an underpass on Derry NOW!

After a lot of thinking I have decided this :-

• Halton’s Regional Chair, Gary Carr (sort of the “boss” of the Council) himself admitted that the underpass “should have been done years ago” and was “an example of poor planning”. He also admitted that the development west of the rail tracks “should never have happened without a grade separation”. This tells me that the Regional Council agrees that we need the underpass NOW.
• In 2007 the Town of Milton passed a motion calling the Regional Council to finish the underpass. This tells me that the Milton Council agrees about the urgency.
• The project is still not expected to start until 2016, with an end date of 2017 (and many recent projects have been delayed, some by over a year). By then who knows what the population will be. This points to a disconnect between the first two bullets and this one.
• Our Councillors already know about the issue. However, Regional Councillors are mostly from Oakville and Burlington (2/3rd of the Council) and may not completely grasp the situation
• We tax-payers, as employers of Councillors, have the right to contact them.
• I debated whether I should just encourage people to contact our councillors (Barry Lee, Colin Best and the Mayor, Godon Krantz [who also sits on the Regional Council]). However, after I lot of thinking I concluded that these individuals already understand the situation and need the support of other Councillors in the Halton Council.
• If Councillors mind getting an e-mail from residents who pay their salaries then they do not deserve to be in the Council (my opinion of course, you may disagree)
• I thought about contacting the staff instead. I have found Milton staff to be very approachable and helpful. However, the Halton website has a department e-mail (MiltonRoads@Halton.ca), but not a point of contact (an individual with a name). Your e-mail (should you decide to use the form linked below) will go to the engineering department as well.
• Finally, it is the Council that will approve or disapprove this project. I feel that getting one e-mail from the tax-payer who suffers from this everyday is not too much to ask. Sure, an individual Councillor may get 100 e-mails, but that is still 1/100th of 10,000 residents impacted by this

Based on this, I reached the conclusion that I should ask residents to contact all Regional Councillors, asking them to move up the project date for the underpass.

To help residents, I set up an online form that will send the e-mail for you. In fact, I even put some sample messages so you dont even have to type a message, if you don’t want to. Honestly, if Mattamy can bombard them for its interest, I think we have the right to do the same for ours.

If you disagree then please do tell me why, because I may have missed something. This is a case where I feel it’s better to ask for forgiveness later, if they mind getting e-mails from residents. Otherwise please follow this link to the petition page . It has link to the online form, as well as individual contact information.

I appreciate your help :).
ps. I am willing to take the e-mail form down if most people find it inappropriate. Please leave a comment telling me if you disagree. Thanks.

I found a flyer from 2008 called “Connections” from the Halton Region and the Town of Milton (official).  Here is what it had to say about Derry :-

At the western end of Derry, the widening from two to four lanes from Bronte Street to Tremaine Road (Regional Road 22) began in October 2007, and is scheduled to be complete in the fall of 2008.  The project was accelerated from its original completion date of 2009.

Umm, soon it will be the fall of 2009 (forget the completion date of “fall of 2008”) and the project has not even started yet.  For months it has been “will start in a couple of weeks”.  Couple of Pluto weeks perhaps.  Oh and did you notice that the “project was accelerated from its original completion date of 2009”.  Thank goodness they accelerated it, because now it may be done by 2010. 

Meanwhile it has been over a year and the other section of Derry (East of James Snow) is not even half done.  It was originally supposed to be done in 2009, but now they said it will be done in 2010.  At the speed they are working at, I doubt it.