NEWS
editionap.ca
Welcome mat out for highway expansion ideas GREGGCHAMBERLAIN gregg.chamberlain@eap.on.ca
Rockland | The engineering consultant firm hired to do a review on four-lane expansion of the highway connection between Rockland and Ottawa won’t be holding formal public meetings on the topic until early next year. But the firm’s project manager welcomes any and all comments from interested parties right now through the Internet. “We’ve only just started,” said Valerie Mc- Girr, a professional engineer with Aecom, the primary firm contracted for the envi- ronmental assessment (EA) review on the County 17/Highway 174 four-lane project. “But we’re always interested in hearing any- thing to do with existing conditions.” Aecom has sub-contracted with Dalcan, another engineering firm with extensive experience in EA reviews on major highway expansion and design plans, for the County 17/Highway 174 review. The EA process is slated to run for two-and-a-half years of in- formation gathering and study before the firms make their final report to the United Counties of Prescott-Russell (UCPR) and the City of Ottawa. The four phases of the EA that Aecom and Dalcan are in charge of concern: identifying the situation, problems, and opportunities, followed by proposing alternatives to four- laning of the highway to deal with traffic needs, then outlining the various design options for either four-laning or alternative solutions, and then providing a final report with recommendations on the best-case scenarios. Final decision whether to accept and put the report recommendations into action will be up the UCPR and Ottawa and the provincial and federal governments which are providing the main financing for any upgrades and/or expansion of County Road 17 and Highway 174. McGirr reported her people have begun researching existing information that the UCPR and City of Ottawa have on the sec- tions of County Road 17 and Highway 174 between Rockland and Orléans. She ex- pects the first general public consultation session, involving both stakeholders and area residents, will be early in the winter in 2013. For now, Aecom has taken over manage- ment of a website that the UCPR created to inform residents in the region about the highway expansion project. Road to Rock- land, at www.roadtorockland.com, has an online comments section that McGirr urges interested individuals and groups to use to provide early feedback and information on issues and concerns for the EA review. She
noted that for an EA process, the definition of the word “environmental” is very broad. “Everything from the natural environ- ment to the social environment,” she said, adding that economic factors, cultural con- cerns, archaeological sites, and other items of interest may also be included. “This is a very long study area, and very complex,” she said. “We need to know ev- erything.”
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Louiselle Cyr
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