November News

Road work

Work on Sarnia and on Wonderland is wrapping up according to the City by next week. Work on Western/Wharncliffe is starting up. A contractor will be working on Wharncliffe Rd N. at the tracks (North of Oxford St.) closing one lane on and off flagging tomorrow Weds, Nov 16th for the day with work being done for London Hydro. The contractor will also be restricting the lanes to one lane in each direction starting next week.

Works ($6 M worth) are planned for 2018 for Sarnia and Western. What form this will take has yet to be determined. There will be a public meeting in the area in early 2017 where the city will reveal its preferred option for the intersection.

LTC changes

At the Municipal Council meeting on September 13, 2016 it was resolved that all bus service would be removed from Dundas Street between Wellington and Ridout in September 2017 to advance the “My Dundas” flex street project. This change requires the re-routing of 9 routes which currently use Dundas Street. The affected routes include 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 19, 20 and 23.

Generally all eastbound buses will operate along King Street and all westbound buses will operate along Queens Ave. The exact alignment for each route is currently under review. You can go to the LTC web site and fill out a survey with your choice of two options for the re-routing.

There are also public open houses on service changes for 2017 on other routes. No changes seem to be planned for our area at this time.

Brescia

Members of your Executive had a very positive meeting with the new Principal of Brescia, Dr. Susan Mumm. She agreed to send us a copy of the current Master Plan to share with the community. The community is also invited to eat at the Mercato on campus. A trained chef leads the food preparation and Brescia is very proud of its food service – best on campus.

Medway Decides

If you want to provide feedback on the Medway Decides project, click here to fill out the survey.

City staff have provided an update on the benches and signage project that was awarded funding.

The north end of the trail is paved and so they are planning to put the benches and signage in the north end only. I asked if we would ever put benches and/or signs on a natural surfaced hiking trail and the answer was not likely as it would require concrete and the natural trails are not meant to have these additions, the trail is meant to stay “natural”. It is an AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act) requirement to have benches on concrete pads with a paved path to them.

Medway Valley updates

Here is the latest update from the University on the renaturalization of the Fram lands:

The treatment and removal process is complete. Moving forward the area will be planted with native grasses and be maintained (essentially mowed) a few times a year by Facilities Management staff. There will be reviews of the naturalized areas and thinning as needed, but that will be on a less frequent schedule – more like every other year.

The City advises that the Conservation Master Plan process will start up again in early 2017. Stay tuned for updates. If you want information on why the Valley is environmentally significant, go to https://www.london.ca/residents/Environment/Natural-Environments/Pages/Conservation-Plans.aspx