Like any growing city, Guelph is perpetually under construction. As the population increases, new houses need to be built, along with roads, stores, and other amenities. Road reconstruction is inevitable, as not only do the roads themselves wear down, but water main and sewer lines, as well as other public and private utilities buried underneath the roads and sidewalks often need maintenance, which can result in entire stretches of road being torn up, as is currently happening along Dublin St.
Among these standard construction projects, however, there are a series of well-intentioned disappointements.
The City of Guelph has been discussing the construction of a new main public library branch downtown for years now. The plan gained some ground in 2009 when the City purchased property on Wyndham St. intended to be the site of the new facilities. The buildings– including the former home of the Family Thrift Store, which has since closed down; Wyndham Art Supplies, which relocated; and 14 apartments, the tenants of which have also all had to relocate– were intended to be demolished, with the property extending to Baker St. to be redeveloped by the city.
The single-storey property containing the Family Thrift Store alone was said to have cost the City upwards of $1.25 million.
And where are we now? The buildings still stand, abandoned, at the end of Wyndham St., leaving a stretch of downtown looking derelict and neglected. And we don’t seem to be making any more headway, with City Hall putting a completion date as far away as 2017.
More recently, the City announced sweeping changes to its public transit. The changes– including rerouting many of the bus lines that service the university and renumbering all routes– was set to ease congestion among main lines; create a “spine” of service down Gordon, Norfolk and Woolwich; and increase bus frequency during peak hours. Many long-time patrons of Guelph Transit had hoped this would be an answer to many problems (“Sorry Bus Full”) that had only gotten worse over recent years. The plans were set to go into action on Nov. 6, but, due to unspecified collective bargaining agreements, will now no longer happen until the new year. In the meantime, bus patrons will have to continue to use the current system– a system which the City of Guelph must know is congested and insufficient to be instituting such aggressive changes– with the promise of improvements just a little further on the horizon.
This isn’t the only significant hiccup transit developments have had in this city recently. A new downtown bus terminal is another project which has been in the works for some time. This summer, the existing terminal at MacDonell and Carden was demolished and coach services were relocated to a trailer in a parking lot at Wyndham and Fountain, across from the police station. As bleak as that sounds, the ad hoc terminal is a lot nicer inside than the previous brick-and-mortar terminal was, a testament to just what state of disrepair it was in.
This terminal was initially set to be completed by Oct. 31, in order to take advantage of $5.3 million in provincial and federal Infrastructure Stimulus Funds and just in time for the new bus routes to come into effect, but has been deferred until the spring of 2012.
The new transit terminal will extend, on Carden St., from Wyndham to MacDonell and will service multiple coach lines, as well as GO Transit and Via Rail. The construction site extends that whole distance, beyond MacDonell to include the site of the previous terminal, as well as the entire roadway south of Wyndham and Carden.
While it is mildly inconvenient that the bus terminal has been moved away from downtown, it is compounded exponentially by the fact that the construction site to build the new terminal completely blocks all pedestrian access to the temporary site from downtown.
If you’re commuting by bus, then you likely don’t have access to a car, but in order to get from the downtown core, including the city bus terminal at St. George’s Square, to the temporary bus terminal, you have to walk all the way down to either Gordon or Wellington, leaving downtown, then walk down Fountain from Gordon or Neeve from Wellington in order to get there. If the construction site weren’t as extensive as it was, or if the work site on Wyndham south of Carden had a pathway to accommodate pedestrian traffic, then a commuter would only have to make the short walk straight down Wyndham to the coach terminal. It is counterintuitive and shows a great deal of disregard towards commuters.
But worse than the limited pedestrian access to the bus terminal is the extent to which it limits pedestrian traffic to the Ward. The neighbourhood– bound by Neeve, Elizabeth, York and Setevenson– is a huge residential community, and is home to many students. Wyndham St. being closed, as well as the commuter tunnel at the old transit terminal, and the entire length of the train tracks being shut off from pedestrian traffic mean that, like commuters from downtown, Ward residents must detour down Wellington or Gordon just to get downtown.
Much of the development plans for Guelph’s expanding downtown are intended to increase traffic to the area, by making it easier for locals to access downtown, for giving them more reasons to visit it, and by making it easier for people to get to Guelph’s downtown from other nearby cities. In the interim, the people who do need to access downtown are suffering for it. Businesses shut down, buildings abandoned, inaccessible transit and extremely limited pedestrian access. While the promise of the future might be great, the present is a little bleak.
Loading ...
