What is a Transportation Master Plan? Why does Prince Edward County need it?
A Transportation Master Plan (TMP) sets a vision for transportation in the County. The process to develop a TMP starts with a review of the current transportation system, how it is working and where areas for improvement are needed. The TMP also reviews best practices and considers emerging trends to identify travel needs in the future. Ultimately, the TMP will identify a series of actions that the municipality can take to address walking, rolling and cycling, road, and other multi-modal transportation needs in the County. Specifically, the TMP looks to:
Ensure the transportation network is accessible for all ages and abilities to meet the future needs of Prince Edward County
Meet the goals and objectives of the County’s Community Development Strategic Plan and Official Plan
Improve road safety for all users
Consider linkages to the County’s Asset Management Plan
What is the process for the Transportation Master Plan?
The Transportation Master Plan will follow the Municipal Class Environmental Assessment master planning process and will be developed in three phases.
- Phase 1: Background review and baseline conditions analysis – will explore the existing conditions of the transportation system. What is working well, what needs to be improved, and what can we learn from others are questions the County will explore.
- Phase 2: Suggesting and Discussing Alternatives – will identify a series of options to continuously improve transportation systems in the County
- Phase 3: Finalizing the Approach and Creating an Implementation Plan - will reflect the final recommendations to advance transportation in Prince Edward County. At each stage in the process, the community will have opportunities to share their ideas, view and inputs to help shape the final Transportation Master Plan.
Does the Transportation Master Plan include transportation outside of Prince Edward County?
The Transportation Master Plan will focus primarily on improvements to the transportation system within the County boundary. There may be considerations made to advance transportation options across the region as appropriate.
Will the plan look at cycling and pedestrian issues and solutions or will it focus only on cars and transit?
The TMP will focus on the most effective ways to move people and goods within the County, following a complete streets approach. This will include looking at all forms of travel including walking, rolling and cycling.
How will my input be used?
In the early stages your ideas and inputs will be used to shape the overall understanding of the current issues and opportunities facing transportation in the County as well as help to form a vision for the Transportation Master Plan that reflects the desires of residents, visitors and other stakeholders. In later stages, your input will be used to inform potential refinements to the proposed policy directions and identify challenges, opportunities and considerations for the proposed policy directions prior to being included in the final Transportation Master Plan.
Has County Council been involved in the Transportation Master Plan Study?
To date, City Council has participated in the Transportation Master Plan process formally by completing a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis of the County’s current Transportation system. Council will be updated through delegations to Council as the project advances, and all Councilors will be invited as stakeholders to community and stakeholder workshops.
This video is a recording of the Public Input Session held on August 27th, 2020 at 7:00 p.m.
This video is a recording of the Public Input Session held on November 25th, 2020 at 7:00 p.m.
There is a desperate need for a comprehensive plan to take the County into the 21st century. Firstly Picton, the largest concentration of residents and businesses is without a bypass or connecting link to enable a percentage of traffic to pass from the east side of the County to the west side of Picton without the need o drive down the main business and residential thoroughfare, Main St. Secondly the County continues to approve new single family subdivisions which require transportation by car to reach the shopping and entertainment section of Picton. There is no plan for intensification within the core area of Picton and no plan for a community transportation system to enable access by other than car. There is also no effort to provide for access by foot from some developments which might be within walking distance. For example the developer of the subdivision on County Road eight across from Bird House City was allowed to build without a plan of subdivision requirement to provide sidewalk access along the county road. I agree with the proposal to limit speeds within communities to 40KM. However without enforcement there is little point. Living on Main St I witness countless vehicles at excessive speed when traffic condition are light and of course during summer months traffic is generally stop a stop and go situation from the Talbot/Lake St. intersection to the Town Hill. And now we have a new Sobeys store opening up on Hwy 33 which will now require residents living in Town to drive to shop which of course speaks to the lack of any kind of transportation plan beyond the car. As for cycling paved shoulders are a must to complement the very fine Millennium trail.
Car and truck road use and safety:
Another opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as the number of accidents. Oh yes, and save lives:
-- Reduce speed limits on all unpaved roads to 40 km/h.
-- Reduce speed limits in all villages to 40 km/h, from end to end (i.e., not just the centre of the village, as in Wellington).
-- Install speed bumps in some villages, e.g., Cherry Valley. CR-10 through CV is a veritable race track.
-- How to monitor speed compliance? Photo radar, ideally, but the infrastructure is probably prohibitively expensive.
-- If there's a benefit to traffic islands in keeping traffic moving and reducing accidents at intersections, let's install more.
-- Electric vehicles are coming. Let's encourage them by installing more chargers. Ontario has clean energy, thanks to the previous Liberal govt's taking us off coal, so EVs really are a clean way to drive.
-- And, on the topic of EVs, The County should be switching its fleet over from gasoline/diesel. While the initial purchase price may still be higher, the savings in energy costs and particularly on maintenance will make up for the price difference within a couple of years. Purchase price a problem? Keep the existing cars/trucks for an extra year.
-- Road maintenance is a major expense for The County. Let's allow tourists to share the cost -- they are major users of our roads after all -- by creating a tourism tax.
Thanks for Have Your Say and the opportunity to comment.
Cycling:
Encouraging active transportation can be a small step towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, something the County should get behind.
-- More trails, in addition to the very successful Millennium Trail, which has been well used by cyclists this summer. Ideally, other villages would be linked by bike trails, allowing increased active transportation that avoids major roads.
-- Identified bike lanes, perhaps by improving soft shoulders, white lines delineating cycling paths from the car and truck part of the road.
-- More frequent bike racks along town and village streets.
Thanks for Have Your Say the opportunity to comment on this important issue.
Everybody seems to forget that the highways were originally built for cars trucks and commercial traffic. l ride in the provincial parks and would not expose myself to potential injury on the highway. A friend commented that Bike users should be licensed and taxed like vehicles to pay for the improvements proposed. Adequate space should be allowed on the highways and cyclists should learn to ride on the right side of the line and single file. Cannot understand why they need the whole road or want to expose themselves so much. The OPP should be fining the cyclists who are not obeying rules of the road. The County is opening themselves up to a huge liability and better increase their insurance requirements as somebody is going to sue them eventually.
I see that contributions are already closed. I just received this information last week.
I cycle a lot in the County and much can be done to improve our roads. First signs should be put on
major arteries to SHARE THE ROAD WITH CYCLISTS. We need paved shoulders on Hwy 49, County
Road 1 and County Road 10 from Picton to Cherry Valley. Currently these roads are very bike
unfriendly and they are major arteries that cyclist will us. The Shoulders on Hwy 62 are a joke,
they too must be widened. Lennox and Addington do a much better job for cyclists than the
County, they have more paved shoulders and public maps of various bike routes. The County
has the makings for the best Bike destination in Ontario, but doesn't seem to realize it. If you
want to increase cycling traffic you have to get busy and produce bike friendly roads.
I would be glad to be involved!!!
Dedicated bike lanes a must. By-pass also a must.
We need to slow down the Traffic in all of the County. “Slow Down and Enjoy the County”.
I’d like to see all of the backroads speed limits reduced by 10K per hour and the speed limit in all the towns, villages and hamlets speed limit reduced to 40K.
During that process we need to look at continuity in speed signs. On some streets the signs change 3 times in less than ½ a Kilometre.
Proper width paved shoulder would not only make Cycling safer in the County but it would reduce Highway maintenance costs. Managing Capital costing with maintenance costing should be common practice.
We need to implement speed cameras as the OPP can’t handle all that is going on in the County.
We need to introduce a Tourist tax to play for improved and well maintained facilities.
What happened to the Way-Finding Project? County Signage is woefully inadequate!
Bearpm@icloud.com, C: 613-848-7690
I have a general comment on vehicular traffic management in PEC, and a few suggestions regarding cycling in PEC:
- To ensure safety of all residents and visitors, and for ecological best practices, I believe more must be done to enforce speed limits for motorized vehicles in PEC;
- I have specific observations regarding CR 11 (East Lake Road) where speeding and illegal passing (on solid line portions) is common. But it should be noted that these comments apply to most County Roads. Because CR 11 is a major conduit to and from Sandbanks Park, and is essentially a residential road, there is a high volume of vehicles using the road—especially in tourist season and on weekend. Technically, CR 11 has “cycling lane” with a large number of cyclists using it regularly. The speeding and illegal passing on CR 11 endangers the lives of many people using the road in the number of ways, not to mention the farmers who drive slower moving vehicles such as tractors on the road on a regular basis. We rarely see OPP speed monitoring on the road. Perhaps signage to remind people there is no passing on the solid line would help address this one element—but the problem is larger than that;
- Regarding cycling: We should all be working to have more designated cycling lanes on our roads in PEC; We are a region that markets itself to cyclists, and we have a responsibility to protect cycling residents and visitors. More cycling benefits our municipality on multiple levels, including health, transit, and environment.
Thanks for listening, and for working to make and maintain PE County a great place to live.