February 17, 2015
2104
As a resident of Victoria Street in Inverhuron, and a reasonable person, I have no problem with the gate on Victoria Street being open, in an emergency, by authority of a municipal bylaw.
It is reasonable for Bruce Power to ask for the gate to be open to transport workers to and from work when Highway 21 is closed due to snowstorms. For the safety of their employees, they ask that anyone coming from Kincardine take the bus provided with a professional driver (at no charge) and should it be necessary, to also allow emergency vehicles to access the gate. This, any reasonable person would agree to. When the weather reports tell us stay off the roads, the leadership of the municipality should be doing the same, if it cares about its residents – stay off the roads – not stay off the roads except for Victoria Street.
Living in Bruce County for more than 30 years, I have learned that you should not be on any road during one of our snowstorms, and having the gate open to the general public during one of these storms, and encouraging people to use it, is beyond stupid.
First of all, you have to GET to Inverhuron. Taking Bruce Country Road 23 (B-line) to/from Kincardine, to/from Lorne beach, or Bruce County Road 15 to/from Tiverton, to/from Inverhuron, are dangerous roads prone to white-outs and become impossible to navigate during a storm.
I believe even after the gate at Victoria Street was opened this weekend, there was still a major accident on County Road 23, so the argument does not hold up that it is a “safe” route.
During the storm and after, the Victoria Street gate was open and became a speedway for snowmobilers – I believe snowmobiles on our roadways is illegal – who is going to police that? People were very quick to learn the gate was open and the street was used all weekend even though there was no longer an emergency – so who gave the order to keep the gate open and whose responsibility was it to close the gate? Was the bylaw still in effect or had it been rescinded before staff had a chance to present a report, or was this an act of civil disobedience?
Please consider the following when, once again, Kincardine council time is allotted to the "Emergency Gate" in Inverhuron:
1. Nothing has changed with Victoria Street since the "Great Gate Debate" in 2010, so why are you revisiting the issue? It is still unsafe to redirect through traffic here.
Victoria Street is still narrow, tree-lined, and trees have fallen in the wind causing local power outages; it has power poles, rural mail boxes, blind curves, a narrow bridge (at a blind curve) with vehicular battle scars; it has sub-standard pavement, hard and high snow banks that obscure driveways; It has no streetlighting, no sidewalks, no shoulders; it is used by pedestrians, pet walkers, snowmobilers, people shovelling snowplow deposits out of their driveways; deer and coyotes are known to use it. Basically it is a quiet, dark, residential street with crumbling pavement.
2. Have the stakeholders who were consulted in 2010 and agreed with status quo, changed their minds?
3. Victoria Street residents are bound by the same gate bylaw. We do not have keys to the "Pearly" Gates as some divisive inciter implied in a newspaper article.
4. One change since 2010 is the improved forecasting of upcoming weather: http://www.accuweather.com/en/ca/inverhuron/n0g/weather-forecast/2294969.
Oh and one more thing. I certainly would not want to live in a seniors' residence that could only sustain life for a few days in an emergency. That is poor management, really poor management!
Susan Novak
Victoria Street
Inverhuron
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