Heavy truck traffic driving through Timmins will soon have designated lanes along the entire Connecting Link.
Council approved changes to the city's heavy truck traffic bylaw June 30.
The previous bylaw designated the curbside lane for heavy truck traffic on Algonquin Boulevard and Riverside Drive from Highway 655 to Shirley Street. It now covers the Connecting Link from Falcon Street in Porcupine to Government Road in the west end of town.
Heavy trucks travelling along Highway 101 — which is also known as Harold Avenue, King Street, Algonquin and Riverside at various points — will be required to use the curbside lane in both directions. It's effective when the properly-worded signs are put up.
“We have quite a few (trucks) that are travelling through town, I see a lot of them trying to pass each other. So with this one here we really help our situation for our roads and for infrastructure going forward,” said Coun. John Curley, who asked for the changes at a May meeting.
In Timmins, the Connecting Link is a 21.35-kilometre stretch of Highway 101 running from Kamiskotia Road in the west to the old railway tracks in Porcupine.
Since 2016 more than $19 million of roadwork has been done on about five kilometres from the top of Rae Hill to Legion Drive.
Planned work on the Connecting Link in Timmins isn't moving ahead this year after the sole bid for roadwork on Algonquin Boulevard between Mattagami Boulevard South just east of the bridge to Theriault Boulevard came in millions over budget. The city engineer's estimate for the project was $6.1 million, and the sole bid came in at $8.5 million.
When the provincial funding announcement was made earlier this year, Matheson and Kapuskasing were earmarked for funding but Timmins was not on the list.
To help save the main road through town, Curley asked for the curbside restrictions. At the May meeting, he also suggested half load restrictions, which was not talked about at this week's meeting.
Controlling traffic going through the city is good, according to Curley, because it's causing damage to the infrastructure that local taxpayers are paying for.
During the council discussion, Timmins Mayor George Pirie said people will notice more trucks hauling ore from the Kidd Creek mine site to the met site during the day.
“You’ll be noticing a few more trucks on the road as I’m sure everybody’s aware Kidd Creek has had problems with its culvert on Porcupine River and are in the midst of changing and/or correcting the problems they’ve had with the culvert on their railroad system and they’re currently trucking about 1,200 tonnes a day,” he said, adding they'll be moving it up to about 3,000 tonnes a day.
