GO station redevelopment plans could bring ‘traffic chaos’ without proper planning: Siscoe

The area around the St. Catharines train station, is slated to be redeveloped.

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Plans for redevelopment of the St. Catharines train station and surrounding area include a warning from the mayor of St. Catharines to Niagara Region staff: make sure you get the detours right.

The transformational project includes reconstructing the old Via station site with a new bus loop with six bays and an access road connection to Ridley Road for GO trains. Also, the 100-year-old CN overpass on St. Paul Street West is scheduled for replacement this spring.

All of that work will disrupt traffic patterns and cause headaches for residents, the Region’s public works committee heard Tuesday.

A public information session is tentatively planned for March 30.

“I sincerely hope the detour route planned has been altered,” said Mat Siscoe, mayor of the Garden City. “It did not make any sense, and I hope that traffic mitigation measures from both the regional and the city perspective will be a part of this public information session.”

Siscoe said his previous experience as a city councillor when the Martindale Road bridge over the QEW helped alert him to the difficulties residents could face.

“In that case, the pre-planning made a lot of assumptions that did not come to fruition even though the city councillors were stating very clearly that people were not going to follow the detour routes,” Siscoe said. “They were going to go cut through the neighbourhoods, which created traffic chaos on purely residential streets for weeks until followup measures were implemented.”

Siscoe said Region and city staff deserve credit for adjusting the detour plan on the fly, but the effort was purely reactive.

“I hope that proactive measures are being put in place to the north and south of St. Paul West because, otherwise, it’s going to be traffic chaos, and in one of those situations, it’s going to be traffic chaos next to a school in a neighbourhood where there are a bunch of children and not enough sidewalks,” Siscoe said.

“I hope the detour route has been reconsidered because, otherwise, this could be a very, very complicated process for a very long time.”

The area’s transformation includes multiple projects undertaken jointly by St. Catharines and the Region, said Matt Robinson, director of the Region’s GO Implementation Office.

“There will be a lot of improvement, but also a lot of disruption to residents in that area,” Robinson said. “The open house is intended to give them a community update and allow them a forum to ask questions and engage elected representatives from regional council and the city ward councillors.”

Robinson said the open house will allow residents on St. Paul Street West a better understanding of the sequencing of the projects, anticipated impacts and mitigation efforts planned.

As part of the overall project, the Region acquired all lands in and around the station to form what Robinson has called “a transformational multimodal hub scenario.”

The work on Ridley Road includes a new roundabout and access to the station site, which will have pickup and drop-off “kiss-and-ride” facilities.

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