Changes have not been made at this point to address this concern. Previously this had not been identified so it will be forwarded to Operations to take extra care in this area during snow management over the winter. The new design of the roadway will improve the stormwater management along Whitelaw Road by providing a low point several meters south of the intersection and increase the amount of water captured by our storm system, which when combined with winter maintenance should be sufficient to mitigate this freezing concern. If the ice issues persist please feel free to reach out to our Operations department (operations@guelph.ca) at this email address to report any hazardous conditions and they will be addressed.

Thank you for your response Greg.

The potential to change the alignment of Whitelaw Road was not considered as the roadway is intended to stay within the existing right-of-way. Major changes to roadway alignment of this nature must be studied through an Environmental Assessment or in the Transportation Master Plan to identify a demonstrable need and identify property expropriation requirements. The Transportation Master Plan was just updated this Spring and did not indicate any need for a realignment of Whitelaw Road. There has been no need identified for traffic lights at the intersection of Whitelaw Road and Paisley Road.

Tree removals will be required to clear the right-of-way and areas where grading must extend into the adjacent private properties. Trees that are removed are to be replaced either within the roadway or in another location within the City to maintain overall tree canopy. This will be reviewed and managed by the City's Forestry department. A landscape design has been completed for this project to provide a substantial number of boulevard trees between the curb and multi-use paths.

While the City prefers to keep roadways open during construction to minimize the impacts on road users, the nature of this project results in road safety being exceedingly challenging to ensure while also enabling the contractor to do the work. Throughout the majority of the construction period there will be large excavations along the centre of the roadway to install underground services and there will be significant amounts of soil being relocated to reduce the elevation of the high-point of the roadway to improve sightlines while coming over the hill. Keeping the road open during this work would create a difficult and hazardous situation for both drivers and workers, would necessitate significant protective measures to provide a safe route for vehicles, while also slowing progress on the project and lengthening the duration of the road restrictions. The City stands by its Vision Zero policy to put the safety of road users first.

Traffic calming along this section of Whitelaw Road should be accomplished through narrowing of the road lanes and the presence of boulevard trees, creating a sense of narrowness that has been demonstrated to cause drivers to reduce speeds. The City's Traffic department has been reviewing the remainder of Whitelaw Road as a potential location for additional traffic calming measures and will be looking to introduce these measures following completion of this construction project.

Thank you for following up on this response. Traffic impact studies are not typically done for projects such as roadway urbanizations, and the improvement of this section of Whitelaw is not expected to have a noticeable traffic impact. Traffic impact studies are completed as part of the development applications, however the impacts of these developments were not found to be substantial enough to necessitate any changes beyond what was required for the road improvements. 

For successful traffic calming a more holistic approach to the entire length of the roadway would be required. The City's Traffic department has Whitelaw Road listed as an area for future traffic calming strategies, however this is beyond the scope of the Whitelaw Road Reconstruction project and will be implemented separately.

The Elmira Road extension was previously identified in the 2005 Guelph-Wellington Transportation Strategy as part of a proposed “ring road” system. This need is no longer justified based on more recent land use planning by the City and the County, and was removed from the 2022 Transportation Master Plan. There are no plans to study and extend Elmira Road to connect to Whitelaw Road in the County (Puslinch Township). This is also supported by the Wellington County Road Master Action Plan.

On-street parking will not be permitted on this section of Whitelaw Road following reconstruction. Due to the urbanization of the roadway, space will only be provided for through traffic in the northbound and southbound lanes between the curbs, with a left turn lane provided at the Paisley Road intersection. Adding parking space would increase the footprint of the road by a considerable amount and minimize the amount of useful space outside of the roadway itself. Additionally, since there is no public parking designated currently it is not standard practice to add designated parking through a road reconstruction unless specifically identified by the City's Transportation department as warranted.  

The road is to have traffic calming based on the standards set out in the new Transportation Master Plan which was adopted by City Council earlier this year. The lane widths are to be narrowed to 3.5 m as is standard for a collector road. Boulevard trees will be added to create a further visual narrowing of the space. Whitelaw Road is also located within a "traffic calmed zone" and will have a 40 km/h maximum speed limit. Traffic impacts cannot be speculated on at this time as the complexity of changing the road design to promote traffic calming, changing the posted speed limit, and adding a new development adjacent to the roadway leads to unreliable predictions. 

Whitelaw Road is intended to be fully closed between Paisley Road and the north leg of Shoemaker Crescent for the duration of the project. Due to the narrow road surface currently in place it would be infeasible to maintain traffic flow during underground construction work.

The final road cross-section will be two vehicular lanes and multi-use paths for cyclists and pedestrians on both sides of the road.

Traffic lights will not be installed at the corner of Paisley Road and Whitelaw Road due to proximity conflicts with the signalized intersection at Elmira Road and Paisley Road. This intersection will remain a stop sign for Whitelaw Road approaching Paisley Road.