CORNWALL – The City of Cornwall is planning to add bike lanes next year to the northern section of Brookdale Avenue.
The city applied for funding under the Ontario Connecting Links program – the same one that gave the municipality 90 per cent funding ($3 million) in April 2016 to rebuild the overpass on Brookdale, north of Tollgate Road.
The deadline for the funding application was the end of May and the city should hear something later this summer.
In an interview with Cornwall Newswatch, Infrastructure Division Manager Michael Fawthrop says design work would be completed this year with construction scheduled for 2020.
“What we look to do is rehabilitate the road sub base. We’re looking at using some recycled asphalt material, possibly. But the widening’s more to do with adding bike lanes to the roadway,” Fawthrop said.
The section of road is already in bad shape with ruts and cracks.
“Long term for right now is two lanes plus bike lanes and we’ll see how traffic growth goes in the area,” he said. “What we’d be hoping to do is do the detailed design this year and move for construction next year.”
The Canadian National railway overpass, currently under a rebuild, will accommodate bike lanes as well, Fawthrop added.
The project will likely come immediately after the Brookdale sewer project to make sure the road isn’t unnecessarily ripped up or damaged.
The bike lanes would connect the existing lanes on Tollgate Road up to Highway 401. The bike lanes then continue on the north side of the freeway on Cornwall Centre Road and also connect with the South Stormont recreation trail.
There are already bike lanes from Tollgate Road to Fourteenth Street.