Residents drove home safety concerns at a meeting to talk about the options for the decommissioned Hoyle bridge.
More than 100 people packed the Hoyle Community Centre for what was supposed to be a one-on-one information session but turned into a heated group question and answer period that lasted for about two hours.
Emergency access to the Connaught area, safety issues on Carrigan Road and communication with people impacted were among the issues raised by residents. Residents also questioned whether the city is taking their concerns seriously.
The Hoyle bridge that crosses the Porcupine River on Frederick House Lake Road closed in November 2021. There is now only one crossing over the river in that area. Traffic has been rerouted down Carrigan Road, where there have been concerns about safety and flooding.
The options moving forward are to replace the bridge, create a permanent detour around the closure or build a new road east of the Porcupine River. The most cost-effective solution noted in the presentation is to adopt Carrigan Road as a permanent detour and upgrade that road.
For residents at the meeting, there is only one solution — to replace the Hoyle bridge. Ward 4 Coun. John Curley said his preferred option is to replace it with a two-lane bridge.
"It’s a given, I’m not hiding that at all,” he told the crowd.
The Hoyle bridge, according to the city, was built sometime prior to 1930. Maintenance of it was downloaded to the city by Mike Harris' PC government in 1997.
The city has data going back to 2011 showing advanced deterioration, and in 2014 load restrictions were put on the bridge.
Associated Engineering has been monitoring Timmins' structures, including the Hoyle bridge, since 2019. Daniel Lockhart said there have been annual inspections at the bridge since then because of its condition.
He said there's been a wide crack extending down the structure and the barrier is substandard.
“What led us to us being here today is noticing year-over-year that this crack has been continuing to open, move and it’s actually been accelerating year-over-year from 2019 to 2021. That acceleration is cause for concern and why we decided to close the structure,” he said.
'You're putting a whole community at risk'
For the past year, Connaught fire chief Maria Pellerin said emergency services have been a challenge.
"So if something happens to the 101 bridge and it is shut down the whole community of Connaught, Barber’s Bay, Ice Chest has no response except for eight people in Connaught that are firefighters. Carrigan Road cannot be the only option … because you are putting a whole community at risk,” she said.
When the indefinite closure of the bridge was announced last year, the City of Timmins said there would be a "maximum of an eight-minute variance in secondary response from Timmins/Whitney to the furthest point up Frederick House Lake Road."
The Connaught and Whitney stations are both volunteer-based, while the main Timmins station is staffed 24/7 with career firefighters.
People are also worried about the speed of traffic on Carrigan and safely turning at the Highway 101 intersection.
On the highway, there is no turning lane. At the meeting, people shared that vehicles are passing in the left lane while drivers are trying to turn left onto Carrigan. For turning onto Highway 101 from Carrigan, they said that the location of the sun in the winter and piling snow are hazards.
If Carrigan was chosen as a permanent detour, Lockhart expects a turning lane would be added. Turning lanes on the highway falls under the Ministry of Transportation.
The serviceability of roads is also being looked at, he said.
“They’re going to spend tens of thousands on that road … to fix it, why not put it into the bridge instead of doing that? And those people on that road, it’s a straight road, people are flying on that road and they’ve got little kids. They didn’t move there for you to put a highway there for them. That’s why they moved there, to stay away from that traffic and now they’re getting all that traffic and it’s not right,” commented Linda Lefort.
What's next
Timmins engineering manager Glen MacDonald is encouraged by the number of people at the meeting.
“It’s part of the process and when you get an opportunity to hear what the public has to say that’s what the process is for,” he said.
A lot of the comments, he said, can be addressed in the scope of work that's already being done.
Now that there's been a public meeting, people can submit comments online here until July 18. The full presentation with the options is available here.
The next step in the process is to review the public comments, then adjust the design choices, if necessary. A report would then be brought to council for members to vote on how the city is moving forward.
The time frame is dependent on how fast Associated Engineering gets the green light from the city to move ahead, said Lockhart.
Depending on the structure that’s selected, depending on the results from further studies that are going to be required in order to design that new bridge. I don’t have a firm answer for you,” he said.
City has to 'to be more transparent'
Until there is a permanent solution, residents also called for safety improvements on the detour.
Cottager Steve Pladzyk asked for a clear process from the city moving forward that includes better communication with residents.
“Please take these comments and come with a multi-staged plan because to say we’re doing a bridge, it goes to tender and we don’t get the tender closed and done and started for five years. In the meantime, all this other stuff that these people are talking about, their concerns, has to be dealt with," he said.
“City of Timmins, you have to be more transparent. You can’t be posting on a website hoping that we’re all going to click on the right link to get the information we need. That is a travesty of service in this day and age. You need to improve now."
Residents were also unhappy there was only one member of council and one staffer, who has been with the city for about three months, at the public meeting.
“If they were serious about our concerns, more people should have been here to respect us,” said Pellerin.
Because former mayor George Pirie was recently elected as the Timmins MPP, Coun. Kristin Murray is the acting mayor. Curley said everyone was invited to the meeting.
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“Why anybody else on council is here or not here, I have no idea. I wasn’t going to miss this, obviously, I’ve been involved with this right from the get-go,” he said.
Director of growth and infrastructure Pat Seguin is on sick leave, said Curley.
After the meeting, MacDonald said he's made a note to communicate earlier with people.
“Communication-wise, we probably could have had some communication a little earlier and even some notices to the local residents. They would have really appreciated that,” he said.
