The Blue Mountains council is going to provide some assistance to the village of Clarksburg.
At its meeting on June 20, council voted in favour of providing up to $10,000 to the Clarksburg Village Association (CVA) to assist with flower watering, the installation of portable and accessible public washrooms and increased signage in the community.
Council also committed to assisting CVA with a number of other more long-term projects/asks.
At the meeting, council received a delegation from CVA members Sarah Fillion and Dan Field about a number of issues in the village including: speeding, parking, lack of washrooms, wayfinding signage and lack of municipal funding for community projects. A number of local Clarksburg business owners and residents attended the meeting in the gallery.
“We hope you can work with us to make Clarskburg the jewel it should be,” Field said.
Field and Fillion presented a number of requests to council including:
- • Reduced speed limit
- • Enact traffic calming measures
- • Two-hour parking limit from Friday to Sunday
- • Increasing parking (over the next several years)
- • Public washroom amenities
- • Increasing directional/wayfinding signage
- • Some parity with Thornbury with funds awarded from TBM
- • Support and assistance from town council and staff when they approach Grey County with the issues pertaining to their jurisdiction
Part of Field’s presentation focused on speeding and parking issues in the village. CVA would like to see the speed limit reduced to 40 km/hr in Clarksburg as has been done in other areas. He also suggested returning to angled parking downtown would help calm the traffic coming through Clarksburg. The association would also like to see digital real-time speed signs installed in the community to assist with reducing speeds.
Members of council were supportive of the presentation and voted to have staff investigate options for the village and return to council with a report on how to move forward.
“There are a lot of things on that ‘tick list’ we need to start working on,” said Coun. Rob Sampson. “Angle parking is a good idea. I’ve seen it work in other communities.”
Sampson also suggested the town look at the process to declare Clarksburg a Community Safety Zone, which would result in speeding fines being doubled.
Coun. Andrea Matrosovs, a Clarksburg business owner herself, asked about the proposed two-hour parking limit on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Matrosovs pointed out that the Marsh Street Centre often hosts weekend events that would last longer than two hours.
Field noted that the two-hour limit could be a problem for the Marsh Street Centre, but added it was important to figure out the parking situation.
“They have an event and we have no parking. That’s unacceptable. Collectively we have to find a solution,” said Field. “It is a challenge.”
Deputy Mayor Peter Bordignon said the last time a speed study was conducted in Clarksburg by Grey County (County Road 13 is the main road in the village) was in 2016.
“That’s quite a bit of time ago. I will speak to the county to see if they have any plans to take a look at it. Sometimes you have to shine a light on it,” said Bordignon.
Mayor Alar Soever asked the delegation how they felt about a possible road swap between the town and the county that would see County Road 13 become a town road, with the 10th Line being assumed by the county to become a bypass around Thornbury and Clarksburg for larger traffic. The mayor said such a scenario has been discussed.
“The traffic problems, parking problems and jurisdiction problems stem from the fact that it’s a county road,” said Soever.
Fillion said the CVA had not had discussions of that nature, but the association would be happy to participate in such a conversation.
Council voted 6-0 in favour of allocating up to $10,000 from working capital reserve to help address some of the more immediate requests from CVA and also requested a detailed staff report for the more long-term items requested.
