Cambridge Council votes to fund a highway bypass!

UPDATE: March 31/08 The Township of Woolwich applied for and received infrastructure funding to construct
                a road bypass that "will mean as many as 200 trucks a day will be able to bypass the Elmira core."

Trivia question:
1. What do Breslau, downtown (old) Hespeler and now Elmira have that Cambridge Council has rejected
                   Answer: an arterial road bypass around the city core areas.


Would you believe that Cambridge Council along with "three residential developers agreed to front-end the
 majority of the estimated $8,470,000 cost of the "road bypass. Our City of Cambridge Councillors voted to
provide their share of the funding because "the requirement for a traffic bypass of ..... has been a long
standing issue with the residents..." In 1999, a traffic impact study was completed for the proposed City of
Cambridge Business Park development in the vicinity of Maple Grove Road/Sportsworld Drive and Fountain
Street (Regional 17). One of the conclusions of the study was that the BRESLAU Bypass is required to accommodate
the traffic generation from the proposed developments in the Cambridge Business Park and in the Breslau settlement area."

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that the bypass was around the sprawling metropolis of Breslau!

It is unfortunate that Cambridge Council was not similarly concerned about the numerous studies identifying
traffic congestion problems in our core areas. Why did Cambridge Council not grapple with the larger aspect
of "the traffic generation" impact on Concession Road and King Street?

But, here is more bad news. Cambridge will never have a arterial bypass link! You can be certain that not one dollar
 of Regional budget will be spent on a Cambridge bridge! Although Mayor Craig has talked about a "link" and other
Councillors allude to the possible link, it will NEVER happen unless Cambridge funds the entire cost. And yes, 'link'
is the politically correct Cambridge Council term for a bridge.

So what if there is no link? At the first CARSS public meeting, a resident of Cedar Street spoke in favour of a new
link/bridge to remove east-west traffic, mostly trucks from his neighbourhood. Because of the Map #9 revision
to the Official Plan, the residents and his neighbourhood will never get relieve from the heavy truck traffic.

This gentleman made tactical mistakes in advocating for his neighbourhood issue. His first mistake was that he
only appeared at one public meeting instead of showing up at every meeting. His second mistake was that his
presentation was low key and civil - as opposed to presenting insistent demands in a confrontational tone. He should
have copied the public meeting behaviours of the special interest group.

Map No. 9 proposed road changes in Cambridge

Report E-01-007