Plans for Swale Street’s reconstruction is back on track.
Callander’s council decided last August to postpone the project. Why? There were some delays with the design plans, which were needed before the town could put the project out for tender. Council felt that putting a project out for bids in the Fall was not wise, so decided to wait until this year, and put that tender out before the construction season.
Plus, council didn’t want to rush the design and engineering work.
However, that work is now done, completed by Tulloch Engineering. You can see the plans on the Municipality’s website.
All is going well, although Swale Street is proving to be a tight squeeze.
See: Swale Street reconstruction on hold, Callander
Tim McKenna, Callander’s Manager of Operations, reminded council that Swale Street does not offer the standard road right of way. He noted, “Unfortunately, there are section of Swale Street where we’re down to 13 meters. So, when you start incorporating 7.5 meters of asphalt, 1.5 meters of sidewalk and a little bit of boulevard area, as well as the grading necessary between private property and the road allowance, we don’t have a lot of spare space.”
While reviewing the plans, council expressed concern there may not be much space for benches, garbage cans, and trees to add some amenities and beauty to the revived street.
McKenna mentioned, “Normally in a road like this we would have a minimum of 20 meters. If things were great, we’d have 23 to 26 meters of road right of way to incorporate all kinds of things, boulevard trees, nice landscaping and benches.”
However, there are areas designated along the way to add bench and garbage can features, so pedestrians won’t find themselves bereft of creature comforts on their stroll. McKenna assured council, “We are always looking at incorporating those Downtown Revitalization and streetscape beautification projects as we do these.”
McKenna also reminded council, “We have a very tight budget. One of the initial engineer’s estimates for this project was well over $2 million, and we’ve been able to pare it back to about $1.4, so to try to get all of these things incorporated into a single project would be very expensive.”
And with the new construction, how about we run the utility wires below ground?
That’s not as simple as one may think, McKenna informed council. Not mincing words, McKenna said “It’s an extremely painful process.” It’s one thing if say, Bell wants to spearhead the project (it doesn’t), but for a municipality to reach out and ask Hydro and other utilities to go underground, the process is quite laborious and expensive.
McKenna said the town went through this during the reconstruction of Lansdowne Street heading to the dock. Each house along the route has to be individually assessed by the companies to see what work is required, and overall, McKenna emphasized, “It’s extremely expensive and a very complicated process.”
Given the project’s tight budget, the wiring will remain above ground.
The construction tender should go out within the next two months, and work will begin this summer.
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.