Relief in sight for North Bay's worst road

For two straight years, Premier Road has been voted North Bay's worst but now, with nearly $1.8 million earmarked for a major reconstruction project, officials hope it won't be long before the long, lakefront road is both safer and smoother,

It will still be tricky to navigate — this time for a good reason — Premier Road will see construction  for parts of two more years before it is completely repaved and features a sidewalk from Lakeshore Drive to Champlain Park.

"It's good to see it in the budget for 2024," said Coun. Mark King during a capital budget meeting on Monday. There were no objections to the project's inclusion. "There will be people down on Premier Road who won't believe it when they actually see the construction," he added, only half-kidding.

King asked if the location of the new stretch of sidewalk had been determined and he was told it would be installed on the Lake Nipissing side of Premier and would connect to the existing stretch of sidewalk.

King, for his part, says he encouraged the City of North Bay in recent years to invest in the vacant land between Premier Road and the Steve Omischl Sports Complex and, in the Small Town Times podcast clip below that originally streamed North Bay Echo Community Podcast Network in February, King gives some of his personal thoughts on how that land should be developed and how Premier could one day loop back to Lakeshore to form a second access point.

Premier Road is highly populated and exposed to Lake Nipissing weather events and, depending on the season, heavy vehicle use by visitors to Champlain Park and the municipal dog park and boat launch located therein. It finished 12th among North and East roads in CAA's worst roads poll for 2022 and was North Bay's worst-ranked road. 

See related: Premier Road voted North Bay's worst in CAA poll

Motorists and pedestrians find themselves navigating the potholes on a North Bay road that was again voted the city's worst according to voting in 2023's CAA Worst Roads campaign and also climbed the list to third on worst Northern Ontario roads for 2023.

See related: North Bay's worst road to undergo upgrades, repairs in 2024

Thanks to the existing transit route along Premier Road, the stretch of road without sidewalks was identified as an ideal candidate for the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP) Sidewalk Program. Asphalt resurfacing of that section with the new sidewalks, from Fowler Road to Champlain Park, will take place in 2024 with the remainder from Fowler to Lakeshore Drive to be resurfaced in 2025. Upon completion, the sidewalks will run from the entrance to the end of Premier on the lake side of the road.