County to revisit "˜connecting link"™ classification after Highway 6 discussion

Although the county roads committee says Highway 6 should not be uploaded to its road system, county council has decided further discussion and information is in order.

Centre Wellington Mayor and county councillor Kelly Linton, along with Centre Wellington CAO Andy Goldie, had asked the county to take over Highway 6 in May.

Highway 6 is a provincial highway, but through Fergus it is classified as a connecting link, a municipal road that connects two ends of a provincial highway.

The province provides up to 90 per cent of capital project funds for these roads, including seven in Wellington: three in Minto, three in Wellington North and one in Centre Wellington.

Between 17,400 and 23,360 vehicles per day travel the southern portion of Highway 6 through Fergus,  while 10,260 to 14,600 vehicles daily travel the northern section.

Due to the high volume, Centre Wellington is asking the county to take responsibility for the road.

In his June 12 report to the roads committee, county engineer Don Kudo recommended connecting links be excluded from the county’s “reclassification of a local road as a county road” policy, stating:

- the connecting link policy notes ownership is typically with the local or single tier municipality;

- the objective of the movement of provincial traffic does not meet the intent of the county road reclassification policy;

- connecting link right of ways typically include local municipal infrastructure that is not eligible for funding under the Connecting Link Program, such as watermains, sanitary sewers and sidewalks that are owned, operated and maintained by the municipality; and

- the reclassification of a connecting link road from a local road to a county road would create a roadway with three jurisdictional partners (local, county, provincial) to fund and approve work and development.

During the June 28 county council meeting, roads committee chair Gary Williamson said the committee turned down Centre Wellington’s request.

“Based on the discussion and points raised in the report ... and that Highway 6 through Fergus is a designated connecting link and part of the provincial road system and not a local road, the committee turned down [the] request to take over the road,” he said.

“However, the committee did agree that road reclassification policy for local roads should be amended to better clarify the connecting link category.”

The recommendation was to exclude connecting link roads from the reclassification policy.

However, Linton asked council to reconsider, noting that prior to Centre Wellington’s request, there was no clarification about connecting links in the policy.

“The new policy passed by the county provided an opportunity for municipalities to trigger a review of a local road if it met a certain threshold with a traffic count... there was no indication at that time that connecting links were going to be looked at differently,” he said.

“I don’t support an after-the-fact revision of it to not include Highway 6.”

Williamson said the policy was never intended to include connecting links.

“To me, (the revision is) a clarification that, yes, should have been in the original policy, that connecting links have never been a local road and should not be considered as a local road,” he said.

Councillors Shawn Watters and Mary Lloyd supported Linton.

“If it puts undue burned on the local (municipality), then I’m not sure that’s a good policy,” said Watters.

Lloyd added, “It is an undue burden on the municipality when the traffic counts are to the numbers that we’ve seen over Highway 6 over the past year alone, would certainly take it past the local road usage.”

Councillor Andy Lennox said staff should review the policy.

“I think a complete revisit of the policy and review of the purpose of the policy ... would be in order, rather than just an on-the-fly revision,” he said.

“Perhaps we could include in that a study of what roads in the county would potentially qualify, because this is the first test of this policy and we’re tossing it out.”

Councillor Doug Breen said he fears that if the county takes on connecting links, it would “alleviate the province of their responsibility” and it would push priority of local roads that meet the thresholds for county roads below the connecting links.

“I know for a fact that when this policy was put together, the thinking wasn’t that we would take over provincial highways that are not being properly funded by the province,” he said.

Lennox raised a motion to refer the issue back to staff for a complete review of the reclassification of local roads as county roads policy.

“Quite frankly, I think that Mayor Linton has made some good points and I think it deserves a fulsome conversation,” said Breen.

County approved the motion (councillor Neil Driscoll was absent).