A London city council member has requested city staff look into redesigning Hamilton Road to create a better environment for pedestrians and cyclists.
Ward 1 Coun. Hadleigh McAlister put a motion forward to the Civic Works committee Tuesday to have staff identify any updates to Hamilton Road from Adelaide Street to Highbury Avenue as part of the city’s mobility plan. McAlister also asked staff to prepare a business case for the next multi-year budget.
“I am expressing a concern that I hear all the time from my constituents and from Londoners who use this road, as I said, it is a main east west corridor,” McAllister said. “I want to give staff the opportunity to look at a potential redesign. It could be larger. It could be smaller, I don’t know.”
McAllister proposed several ideas, including reducing the road from a four-lane to a three-lane configuration, adding protected bike lanes and wider, more accessible sidewalks.
The road is known for safety issues, with the most recent incident being the death of a cyclist in June.
“It’s not just drivers. I hear this from pedestrians, from cyclists. There are a lot of concerns in terms of the traffic safety for all involved,” McAlister said. “We should seriously contemplate updating this streetscape plan because this is the next step in terms of us looking at that bigger picture and potentially doing redesign on that road.”
Several steps have already been taken by the city to improve safety on Hamilton Road, including new streetlights and a red-light camera at the intersection of Hamilton Road and Highbury Avenue.
London Mayor Josh Morgan says he appreciates McAlister’s advocacy for his ward, but doesn’t want to get ahead of the city’s mobility plan.
“I’m not convinced that this isn’t already something that they’re thinking about in the master mobility plan process, in the context of all the other possible corridor studies that might need to be done,” Morgan said.
“It is not my desire to get ahead of the mass mobility plan process, instead to allow that work to continue from a staff and technical basis, to provide suggestions through the master mobility plan which work for not just this part of the city, but all parts of the city.”
The motion was approved by committee 5-1, with Morgan the lone no. It now goes to full council on Aug. 27.