Councillor: city has 'moral obligation' to four-lane MR35

Ward 4 Coun. Evelyn Dutrisac is calling for the completion of a project widening the main highway between Azilda and Chelmsford, something she said has been promised since amalgamation.

“I would like some clarification of when there will be widening to four lanes,” Dutrisac said at a budget meeting this week. “I see there are plans for resurfacing, but this is not what the residents of Rayside-Balfour are looking for. They're looking for widening of the road.”

Four-laning Municipal Road 35 is an issue that goes back to the 1990s, when the former NDP government decided to open gaming facilities as a way to boost revenue. Every other community in the former Region of Sudbury rejected the idea of hosting a facility – except for Rayside-Balfour, which allowed it to open at Sudbury Downs.

It became a significant source of revenue for the town, and when amalgamation took place at the turn of the century, there was an implicit promise that four-laning the road using the slots revenue would be a priority.

Since then, the city has received about $32 million from the fund, but the four-laning is still not complete. Dutrisac reminded councillors the city would have gotten nothing if not for the foresight of people in the town.

“No one else in the city wanted those slots,” Dutrisac said. “What kind of moral obligation do we have to the residents of Rayside-Balfour?”

Roads director David Shelsted said there is a plan to spend $6.2 million in 2016 reconstructing that stretch of road. While it won't widen it to four-lanes, culvert and other preparation work will be completed.

“That's ($6.2 million) for reconstructing a good chunk of the road from Notre Dame west towards Chelmsford,” he said. “That won't include the widening, but it's setting everything up for the widening to occur in the future … As far as the full widening, there's nothing budgeted in the five-year outlook.”

But they are working on a transportation master plan which will include a review of the priority list, Shelsted said. While he didn't have a current estimate, he said at one time the cost for four-laning the road was pegged at $29 million.

The city has received more than that in slots revenue, Dutrisac said, yet residents are still waiting 15 years later.

“We were told (at amalgamation) we would be getting better, but I'm looking at this and it doesn't seem to be getting better for Municipal Road 35,” she said. “I'm saddened and disgusted. As a community, we went for the slots. We knew the slots (revenue) were going to improve the roads in our community.”

And Ward 3 Coun. Gerry Montpellier said he wanted councillors to support expediting the project to fix “this dangerous highway.

“The citizens always had this understanding there was this magic bank to four-lane this highway,” Montpellier said. “(Yet) it's been a lot of years of 'we don't know.' ”

Dutrisac said residents have also been waiting a lot time for repairs to MR15, which she said was built as a farming road, yet now is used by heavy ore trucks that shake homes to their foundation as they rumble by.

“The people living on MR15, to tell them it's going to be another five or 10 years, they're going to sell their homes,” she said. “I don't blame those people for being mad. Their homes are being wrecked by the big trucks.”

Mayor Brian Bigger said it would make more sense to complete MR 35, which will allow the heavy ore trucks to link directly with the Maley Drive extension, which the city hopes to begin building soon.

“Most of the heavy trucks that are damaging MR35 are also going on MR15,” Bigger said.

By completing both projects, ore trucks from Timmins and other areas that travel south through Sudbury would be able to bypass population centres by using a four-laned MR35 and Maley, which would complete the ring around the city.

“Part of the solution is Maley Drive, so the heavy trucks will no longer go on that road,” Bigger said.

That led to a discussion about debt financing to help the city catch up on its $1-billion infrastructure deficit in roads. Ward 5 Coun. Bob Kirwan said it was time for a “major shift” in thinking, because at the rate the roads are being repaired now, the city is falling farther and farther behind.

“If we're going to do Maley Drive, it makes sense to do MR35 at the same time,” Kirwan said. “The best way is to do it now by doing some debt financing.”

“Coun. Kirwan, I think that's the way to go,” Montpellier agreed. “In the end, if you're never going to save enough, it's never going to get done.”

That discussion, however, was put off until the completion of the current budget process, and the release of the city's revised transportation plan, expected in a few months.