Trucks Travelling Illegally Through Our Community

Published: July 20, 2007

To AWWCA members,

The AWWCA executive has been working diligently to solve the issue of large trucks illegally traveling through our residential streets to reach McMaster's campus.

I wrote an article about this in the Autumn 2006 issue of Neighbourhood News & Views called "The Trucks Stop Here" (p. 4). Please go to www.awwca.ca for community information.

On June 17, 2007, we sent a formal letter to McMaster President Dr. Peter George outlining our understanding of the process we have followed so far. This letter is copied below.

To date we have not received a reply, but we want to keep you up to date with your board's activities in light of the recent Hamilton Spectator article about the delay in completing the new McMaster stadium. We believe it could become a point of conflict between the neighbourhood and the university come September.

The AWWCA board's position is clear: no large trucks should be illegally traveling through our residential community. We have been very accommodating in sharing the burden of this type of traffic 50/50 with the university to allow McMaster time to develop an appropriate truck traffic plan. This agreement with the university expired May 1, 2007. As of September 1, 2007, it is our intention to ask the City of Hamilton and the Hamilton Police Service to enforce the truck bylaw by ticketing those trucks illegally traveling through our community.
As always, member feedback is appreciated.

Sincerely, Rob Payne President Ainslie Wood/Westdale Community Association of Resident Homeowners Inc.

Dr. Peter George President McMaster University 1280 Main St. West Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L8

Dear Dr. George:

As you may be aware, our members continue to be upset about large trucks traveling to and from McMaster University through our residential streets. We think it would be useful to review our understanding of what progress has been made so far, as well as what our expectations are for the future.

The Ainslie Wood/Westdale Community Association of Resident Homeowners Inc. (AWWCA) represents over 500 resident homeowners in the area around McMaster University. We have been working diligently with the university through the President's Advisory Committee on Community Relations and through our unique partnership in the Campus Town Association. We have appreciated the collaborative nature of our relations in recent years and look forward to developing them further in the future.

Unfortunately, on occasion conflicts arise for which there is no easy solution. The issue of large trucks traveling on our residential streets is one of these occasions.

While truck traffic has been a concern of the community for a number of years, the growth of the university and the construction projects on campus resulted in over 200 trucks per day traveling on our residential roads for many months during 2006. This is one truck every two minutes. As a result of receiving many complaints from our members, we met with the university and city officials in the fall of 2006 to discuss what could be done to alleviate the pressure on the neighbourhood. The result of the initial meeting was disappointing, as the university rejected outright the AWWCA's request for it to at least share the burden with the community by routing more trucks through campus.

The AWWCA could not accept this refusal and contacted our local ward councillor to ask what could be done to encourage the university to address this issue in a more collaborative way. Councilor Brian McHattie organized a meeting hosted by the Hamilton Police Service and attended by representatives from the city, the university, and the AWWCA. During this meeting, it was highlighted that, in the opinion of the Hamilton Police Service and the City of Hamilton, McMaster's use of the surrounding residential streets was in fact an illegal use because it did not use the most direct routes to the campus, i.e., through either the Main Street West or the Cootes Drive entrance. McMaster did not accept this interpretation of the bylaw as valid but agreed to a meeting as suggested by the police to determine if any form of compromise could be found.

During the follow-up meeting, the AWWCA again suggested to the university that until May 2007(the expected end of the construction of the McMaster stadium), the neighbourhood would agree to absorb half the truck traffic, sharing the load with the university. Then, from May to September, when campus is quieter, it was our understanding that all trucks would be routed through campus. We also suggested to the university that it develop a university trucking transportation plan and provided information on the University of British Columbia's program as a possible template. McMaster accepted these collaborative suggestions, which gave it sufficient time before September 2007 to correct the problem of trucks following illegal residential routes to service the university.

Our position has been consistent throughout this process. We do not want large trucks in our residential community, and the traffic bylaws of the City of Hamilton, as interpreted by both the Hamilton Police and the city itself, support our position. However, we appreciate the need for the university to have enough time to plan how to accommodate truck routing on campus, and we have been willing to assist the university by continuing to allow trucks in the community while the study is finalized.

We are now approaching the end of our agreement, and we are concerned about what September 2007 will bring. We understand that the university is still in disagreement with the city and police interpretation of the bylaw. We are concerned by the university's decision not to involve the city in the development of the truck transportation study, given the joint nature of the problem. It seems the university still intends to use residential streets for truck routes that had been identified for traffic calming and reduced traffic by both the McMaster Campus Plan and the city's Ainslie Wood Westdale Secondary Plan.

While the AWWCA recognizes the need for sufficient time for the university to develop an alternative truck transportation plan, any plan that does not have as its goal the removal of trucks from our residential streets will not be supported by the community.

Sincerely yours,

Rob Payne President Ainslie Wood/Westdale Community Association of Resident Homeowners Inc.

Author: Rob Payne

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