Wawa’s School Safety Zone Project gets Funding

Jun 25, 2020 at 13:00

 

At today’s Special Council meeting, Mayor Ron Rody announced that funding had been received for Wawa’s School Safety Zone Project. It is a five million dollar project, with 4.3 million coming from Provincial and Federal funding sources. The balance $700,000 will come from the Community of Wawa.

Mayor Rody explained, “We have a building project in town this summer, everybody is avoiding Mission Road and using Churchill (Avenue). Next summer we will be avoiding Churchill and using the new Mission Road.” He continued, “I’m looking forward to that project. As a school principal (editor’s note: principal at St. Joseph’s School), for over 20 years – I dealt with issues of school safety in and around Arnott Street, Boyer, and Churchill. So it is good it (the concerns) will be addressed  and we will get the school boards and principals, teachers, parents, the opportunity to look at this project as it is laid out and moves forward. Good news for Wawa.”

The road surface will be reconstructed in the ‘School Zone’ which encompasses Magpie Road, Churchill Avenue, Boyer Street, Spruce Street, Arnott Avenue, Ross Street, Darwin Street, Parkhill Street and Grace Street. The project will consist of full depth expanded asphalt stabilization, resurfactig, curb and gutter replacement, sidewalks ramps. The project will also review bus loading/unloading area, parking crosswalks and all signage. The project is planned to begin in Spring 2021 with completion in 2022/23 depending on the tender bid and proposed scheduled. The RFP that was submitted to Council on June 9, 2020 estimated that the project excluding HST would be $4,549,662.66.

Funding will be coming from the Rural and Northern Communities Fund which covers up to 93.33% of the project.

Council approved a by-law to authorize The Corporation of the Municipality of Wawa to enter into a Transfer Payment Agreement with Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Ontario, as represented by the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, regarding funding under the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP); Rural and Northern Stream Project.

 

Project Name	Location	Project Details	Federal Funding	Provincial Funding	Municipal/Other Funding
Reconstruction of Roads Wawa School Zone	Wawa	Reconstructing nine roads around the Wawa school zone will include repair and replacement of curbs, sidewalks, ramps and gutters. The project will also add pedestrian crossings and bike lanes. These upgrades will improve safety and reliability, support better traffic flow, and facilitate active transportation.	$2,729,798	$1,516,403	$796,34

 

Before the meeting closed , Councillor Bill Chiasson did ask Mayor Rody about the School Zone Project, “Way back when I was working at the school with you (Councillor Chiasson was on the Maintenance Staff at St. Joseph’s School), there was talk about closing down Boyer Street and using that as a bus loading zone. Is that still up in the air or has it gone down?” Mayor Rody responded, “I’m assuming there will be public sessions, don’t know how that will work under COVID-19 rules, but that will come a little later. This project is at the engineering stage. If that becomes a strong request from the school boards, it is certainly something that we would have to look into. I recall at that time when those discussions took place, there were concerns about access to certain areas in regards to emergency vehicles, as to whether we wanted to have a block that large. So I’m sure that will come up again, but I think a lot of things will be open. Initially, we need to have a plan for people to look at, and then make recommendations, and then as a Council in consultation with the engineers and staff make ammendments to the first plan. There will be plenty of opportunity Bill to talk about that.”

Council also approved to the sale of Municipal Land, Part of Parcel 395 ACRL, in the District of Algoma to Algoma Ferrous Industries Inc. and Algoma Ferrous Corp.