Heavy Truck Update
Published: January 18, 2008
The AWWCA has maintained a consistent position of "no heavy trucks" travelling illegally through the residential streets of our community. We have met with the city and McMaster numerous times over the past two years in an attempt to encourage McMaster to develop a joint trucking plan with the city to maximize both on- and off-campus safety.
An AWWCA-initiated compromise to share the truck traffic until September 2007 was extended by the city to Jan. 31, 2008, allowing McMaster to use residential roads for trucks needed to complete the new stadium.
The chronology of events is well documented in AWWCA newsletters and on our website at awwca.ca.
We are pleased that heavy trucks will be required to follow city-approved truck routes as of Jan. 31, 2008. We would like to thank our members who live on streets accommodating heavy truck traffic, as part of the temporary city/Mac agreement, for their patience. In some cases, residential streets have been absorbing this truck traffic for over four years, so we know that the McMaster news release (below) is welcome.
We hope that this clarification of heavy truck routings will encourage McMaster University and the city to develop a collaborative process for transportation planning in the future.
The recent McMaster news release, which only focuses on the health and safety of on-campus pedestrians, emphasizes a "university as an island" approach that is out of place with transportation/traffic issues that impact equally both the campus and near-campus communities.
The McMaster Campus plan allows service and construction vehicles to travel through the university to service campus buildings. It is now up to Mac to manage this travel by using planning tools not available to near-campus neighbourhoods, such as truck marshalling, escorted transport, travel times co-ordinated with non-peak pedestrian times, and truck monitoring.
Rob Payne, Chair
AWWCA Transportation Committee
Below is a Jan. 15 news release from McMaster University regarding truck traffic.
University plans for implementation of city trucking bylaw
January 15, 2008
Last September, the City of Hamilton passed a bylaw prohibiting trucks from accessing McMaster through the Sterling Street entrance. A short term exemption to the bylaw allowing limited truck travel at the Sterling entrance ends January 31 which means all trucks will have to move through the centre of campus.
"The University priority is to safeguard the health and safety of everyone on campus," said Roger Trull, vice-president of University Advancement. "The approved Campus Plan designates the centre of campus as a pedestrian priority area and being forced to have all truck traffic use the centre campus which already accommodates more than 400 HSR bus trips a day puts all pedestrians at risk and doesn't live up to the intent of the Campus Plan."
As a preliminary step, the University has asked the city to reroute 25 buses a day so that they do not run through campus, without reducing service levels. The bus reduction will help balance the increased truck traffic that will occur after January 31. If the city requires more time to make the bus route changes, McMaster has suggested that the January 31st date be extended. McMaster is waiting to hear which direction the city will take.
For many months, University leaders have been working with the city hoping to reach an agreement that addresses these concerns, while avoiding a safety hazard for students, faculty, staff and visitors. While the University is hopeful these discussions will result in positive change, planning continues for the January 31 bylaw implementation.
"The well-being of our students, staff and faculty is of the utmost concern to the McMaster Students Union. Any increase in campus traffic heightens risks to the members of our community. Our campus needs to be, and should remain, a pedestrian priority one," says Ryan Moran, president of the McMaster Students Union.
Trull says the University is one of the HSR's biggest customers and ideally we would like to see even more people using the bus to get to campus.
"We're confident that by working together with the HSR, we will find a way to improve service and meet our ultimate goal of having HSR buses use a terminal or other facility on or near campus that will keep all buses out of the pedestrian core."
Author: Rob Payne