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Residents opposed to Blair mega warehouse question traffic study's validity

City and region in process of reviewing traffic impact study for Blair mega warehouse
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Blair resident Tim Armstrong stands at the Fountain Street and Dickie Settlement Road roundabout; next to a proposed mega warehouse that will add an estimated 250 daily trips from transport trucks and other vehicles. The group opposing the warehouse believes a traffic study grossly underestimates traffic volumes generated by the project.

The group opposed to a massive e-commerce warehouse in Blair knows its concerns don't necessarily resonate with the majority of Cambridge residents.

Traffic, however, has the potential to impact every driver and taxpayer in the region.

That’s why Tim Armstrong and other members of Blair Engaged are raising alarms now that staff at the City of Cambridge and Region of Waterloo are reviewing a traffic impact study for the development that concludes no changes are needed to accommodate the addition of close to 400 more vehicle trips a day to roads near Blair.

With the addition of hundreds of transport trucks and other vehicles to an already busy rush hour route, Armstrong says it's inevitable there will be problems, even if the study's "low-ball" estimates are correct.

"People who commute should really get involved in this since it's going to impact their commute," says Armstrong, pointing west down Dickie Settlement Road. "This is the main artery into Kitchener for people in Cambridge."

"In the summertime, it's insane here."

Anyone who's driven Fountain Street South past Blair during the afternoon rush hour knows what Armstrong is talking about.

Traffic regularly backs up at the Blair Road and Fountain Street roundabout half a kilometre to the east of the proposed development.

At times, it bottlenecks to a point where vehicles line up across the Fountain Street bridge over the Grand River. 

At the intersection that would serve the warehouse, the roundabout at Fountain and Dickie Settlement handles commuter traffic between Kitchener and Cambridge.

It also feeds the Cambridge campus of Conestoga College and delivers gravel trucks hauling heavy loads west through the intersection to pits in North Dumfries township.

With 110 loading docks, Blair Engaged says the warehouse planned for that corner will have capacity to host 50 trucks per hour or as many as 1,200 trucks a day; numbers the group says will generate significantly more traffic than the 386 trucks trips presented in the study released last month by Paradigm Transportation Solutions Ltd.

Broccolini Real Estate Group Inc., the firm behind the proposed warehouse, hired Paradigm to conduct the transportation impact study last year.

It outlines impacts to Fountain Street, Dickie Settlement Road, Old Mill Road and surrounding intersections, including the 401 cloverleaf and Homer Watson Boulevard further north.

Paradigm estimates the warehouse will add 191 peak hour morning trips to and from the warehouse and 288 peak time afternoon trips. Almost all of that traffic will travel through the Fountain Street and Dickie Settlement roundabout heading to and from Highway 401.

In addition to the loading docks, the project's site plan includes 825 parking spaces and 300 transport trailer parking spaces.

An additional 36,241 square feet of office space and will house between 683 and 1,075 employees during peak season from November to February.

But Paradigm says the entire development is expected to generate less traffic than the multi-tenant industrial park the city approved for 140 Old Mill Rd. back in 2016.

That project, which passed city zoning amendments without raising nearly as many concerns from neighbours, would have generated about 3,235 daily passenger vehicle trips and about 547 truck trips daily.

“This is 1,085 and 161 more daily passenger vehicle and truck trips, respectively than the current development proposes,” reads the study.

Paradigm recommends the warehouse be approved with no conditions related to off-site transportation improvements and states “no additional remedial measures are required…to accommodate the forecast traffic increases and impacts arising from the development of the site.”

The region has already agreed to take some measures to alleviate pressure on the Fountain Street South roundabout and is planning to install a right lane bypass onto Dickie Settlement Road on the eastbound approach to the roundabout.

It will also widen Dickie Settlement up to Old Mill Road, adding raised median to prevent traffic crossing onto the eastern stretch of Old Mill and going into Blair.

Armstrong doesn’t think it will help.

“There’s nothing in the traffic study that articulates how they came to these numbers,” he says. “I think they cherry picked the data points to make the study as good as it could be.” 

Now Armstrong and others are worried the city and the region will agree since both municipalities have already proven they’re not willing to challenge the developer.

Estimates on traffic generated to and from the college is another piece he believes isn’t accurate. 

Counts taken last fall and this spring were used to forecast the morning peak time average to the school to be between 250 and 280 vehicle trips.

The problem with using that data, he says, is it was taken during pandemic shutdowns when most students were in virtual learning environments.

"I'm challenging their numbers. It doesn't add up," Armstrong says. "And once they're in, the city's got a huge problem to deal with."

It's a problem, he believes, could eventually be shouldered by taxpayers if the region and the city don't demand more from the developer before green lighting the study.

Both municipalities are in the process of poring over the data before preparing a report to councils early in the new year.

Armstrong says he’s been told that likely won’t happen until June of next year.

Broccolini had hoped to break ground on the project last summer with plans for the still-unnamed tenant to take occupancy sometime in late 2022. 


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Doug Coxson

About the Author: Doug Coxson

Doug has been a reporter and editor for more than 25 years, working mainly in Waterloo region and Guelph.
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