Town staff went back to the drawing board, and they came back with a more sobering look at the danger some staff face while trying to keep Collingwood beautiful.
On Monday night, the corporate and community services standing committee put forward a recommendation to reduce the size of the gardens on the Pretty River Parkway in an effort to protect staff from increasing traffic volumes which cause a dangerous situation when planting and maintaining the plots. This was staff’s second go at the report, which initially came before the committee back in May.
“The proper emphasis wasn’t on the recommendation being a health and safety (issue at that time),” said Dean Collver, director of parks, recreation and culture for the town. “So hopefully in this report, we were able to illustrate some of the danger that comes from this somewhat unique median situation.”
According to the report submitted by Collver, the medians fill up with sand and salt each winter, and it’s a labour-intensive process to clean out the beds and turn them into a flower bed capable of supporting the annuals typically planted each year.
Additionally, staff must shut down the interior two lanes of traffic (one each direction) while performing the work. While this is intended to protect staff while they work, there have been multiple incidents where vehicles have entered the protected area.
The location of the medians in the midst of four primary lanes of traffic means that each winter a significant amount of sand and salt is placed into the planting beds as a result of winter maintenance.
“What we’re really trying to do, is we’re trying to limit the amount of time staff are in a risky situation,” said Collver.
A new design would see the garden areas shrink to approximately 50 per cent of their existing size overall, but distributed along the medians with work platforms made from water-permeable concrete separating each space.
The size and design of each of the smaller gardens will take into account more ideal work parameters and aesthetic distribution throughout the space occupied by the existing medians. Xeriscaping concepts will be used in the new design to promote planting material that has a higher probability of success in less desirable environments.
Depending upon the final design and feasibility, garden covers may be constructed for the winter months as an effort toward keeping winter sand and salt from contaminating the growing beds.
Coun. Tina Comi asked if banners would still be included in the design as they were back in May.
“We didn’t hear from council (back in May) that that was desirable, so we didn’t include them. We focused on the soft treatment,” said Collver. “We can take another look at it if council is still interested in banners there.”
“This was, essentially, to bring you all up to speed so when we come forward with an ask at budget time, you’ll understand where we’re coming from,” he added.
There was $220,000 approved in the 2019 Capital Budget for the project. The same amount is being recommended for the 2020 Capital Budget.
The committee voted to recommend that staff develop a design for the Pretty River Parkway medians that reduces the garden area to a size that can be managed with less risk, by virtue of less time spent in the areas of high traffic volume.
The recommendation will be forwarded to the next council meeting to be ratified.
- with files from Erika Engel
