Most municipal services are legislated to either the upper or lower tier to handle. Your municipality takes care of parks and fire departments. Your county takes care of health and libraries. Sometimes, our work intersects. One of the most co-mingled matters in our work and your daily life is transportation. Some roads belong to the county, others to the municipality. Some services such as public transit aren’t strictly allocated to one level or the other.
This month, Elgin County provided their proposed Transportation Master Plan for our feedback. There are elements that are good, bad, and, honestly, complicated. So what are the most useful parts to know about?
The Good: Road Widenings
The plan anticipates widening both Wellington Road and Highbury Road from two lanes to four. This will be a welcome change for many commuters, and especially for the folks in Belmont who spoke at their autumn Town Hall about their frustrations with all the new large truck traffic associated with PowerCo.
The plan also considers that Sunset Road could be widened as far south as John Wise Line. This could help some with the summer traffic, although I do note with some cynicism that the county wants St. Thomas’ input on the Sunset Road work – an interesting suggestion when the work would affect Central Elgin land.
The Bad: Road Rationalizations
The county plans to determine which roads it wishes to continue to own and manage, and which ones it plans to turn over to the care of the lower tier municipalities. In our case, Elgin is considering transferring Joseph Street, East Road, Old Dexter Line, Fruitridge Line, Sparta Line, and Springwater Road to Central Elgin’s custody. Some of these handoffs could improve efficiency when we change signs and add traffic calming measures. However, the costs of these roads would become an impact on Central Elgin taxpayers, and the plan does not include any details on how to balance for that. Our staff have drafted a great response statement which recommends that Elgin should reduce their tax rate by enough to account for whatever we might have to raise ours by, so that the change doesn’t impact our residents. I think that’s a fair and well-stated idea which I hope will be endorsed by the county.
The Inscrutable: Public Transit
I’m excited to see that the Transportation Master Plan includes a plan for public transit! I brought a motion in 2025, hoping for us to begin exploring the idea of public transit between St. Thomas and Port Stanley. This plan is much broader, suggesting transit across the whole county. I shouldn’t be surprised by that. When St. Thomas mayor Joe Preston and I talked about our mutual interest in transit, he told me he would love to see transit not only between St. Thomas and Port, but also to Aylmer and London.
I don’t know whether this public transit proposal will get in the way of Central Elgin giving its blessing to the Transportation Master Plan as a whole. My August 2025 motion was rejected with very little discussion, which has me unsure about the success of this element. On the other hand, when Elgin County discussed the Transportation Master Plan, Mayor Sloan voted in favour. Maybe that means that our council will look at this motion with a fresh set of eyes. If so, we could see public transit benefits to an even larger portion of our community than I had originally hoped.
On the whole, I’m excited about the TMP, and confident that our staff have done a great job of explaining our position and needs with regards to any future rationalizations. We have lots of great things to look forward to as this plan comes to fruition. If you’re watching on Monday night, or planning to reach out to your council reps about the TMP between now and then, the discussion on widenings, rationalizations, and public transit will be the big ticket items to keep in mind!
I live at 333 Sunset Dr and I really don’t see the need to widen the road in this residential neighbourhood that already has drivers performing dangerous driving manoeuvres on a daily basis. I live 120m from a traffic light and only a few times has the traffic been backed up to my house even in ultra peak times and seasons. Widening the road would not improve traffic flow and would only improve chances of harm to residence. I will only go in my front yard if absolutely required because I’ve already almost been killed by a senseless driver being insane. Not to mention that in 10 years of living here 3 cars have hit objects (trees, brick columns) 6 feet from the road. One drunk and one fell asleep. Traffic calming measures are being introduced everywhere and then you want to take them away in strictly residential area? That makes zero sense. I’ve seen people pass school buses with lights on, I’ve seen people passing on the right which is a sidewalk but the same material as the roadway so people treat it like a road. I already plan on moving due to these major issues so this really doesn’t affect me in the long run but it would cost at least one person their life in a short period after the road is widened I guarantee it!!! Come watch traffic in the summer and tell me the people need more room. They need more calming measures!!
I think that’s a great point, Damian! I know our firefighters get frustrated with people passing on the shoulder on Sunset and other unsafe practices. I do think that if expansion stops at John Wise, it could create a new bottleneck with new bad behaviours. It’s going to be important to have good traffic calming and enforcement alongside any widenings!
How much will the province and or feds be contributing to the road widening to service Powerco?
With regard to the transportation plan, what will be the benefit to Belmont? I feel we already pay a disproportionate amount of tax for services and infrastructure.
Hi Michael! Typically, road widenings would be paid for out of County coffers – and yes, that ultimately means by us, the tax payers. The plan anticipates provincial and federal infrastructure grants, though a specific amount isn’t identified. I read that to mean that the county is counting on some funds being contributed because of the rapid expansion being asked of our community for PowerCo. The plan also discusses county-level development charges which would bring in additional income from new homes and businesses as they’re put into place, though like with the grants, it’s not a fully-formed and high-detail plan at this point. I can see this being a help to Belmont in particular because at the town hall in the autumn, many people were frustrated by recent increases in the volume of traffic, especially large trucks, which they identified as coming back and forth between PowerCo and the 401. If that’s the case, then additional lanes on Highbury and Wellington could ease that congestion.
Edit: *With regard to the public transportation plan.
Driverless Cabs and small vans are going to render public transit obsolete. They will offer door to door service on your schedule for about the same as the real cost of public transit. Don’t waste money you don’t have on this.
Hi Andrew! That’s very possible, and Ontario is in the forefront of provinces experimenting with self-driving vehicles. On the other hand, nearly every modernization hits rural Ontario much later than it reaches urban centres. I still have many folks in my ward with inadequate access to internet, or living in cell phone dead zones. So I think we should also anticipate that driverless cabs may be much slower arriving on the scene in Elgin County than they will be in London and Toronto. Something to look forward to, but not something I’m ready to rely on until I see a timeline for our area.