North Bay city council brings on engineering firm for future Seymour Street reconstruction

North Bay city council voted to award an engineering firm a $390,000 contract on the future reconstruction of Seymour Street.

North Bay city council voted to award Tatham Engineering Ltd., out of Collingwood, a contract on the future reconstruction of Seymour Street. A photo of Seymour Street on June 28, 2024. (Eric Taschner/CTV News Northern Ontario)

The enigineering contract is going to Tatham Engineering Ltd., out of Collingwood.

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Included in the proposal for the project is installing additional traffic lights at the intersections between Seymour Steet and Venture Crescent and Commerce Crescent along with road widening, retaining walls, storm sewers and ditch work. A concrete sidewalk from Station Road to Commerce Crescent will also be added. The proposal also shows the additional of a 600 mm diameter trunk watermain on Seymour Street from Wallace Road to Station Road and the extension to Hwy11/17 along Cholette Street to the east side of the right-of-way limit.

The intersection at Seymour Street and Venture Crescent in North Bay, Ont., on June 28, 2024. (Eric Taschner/CTV News Northern Ontario)

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The city has already received funding approval of up to $1.2 million from the Ministry of Northern Development through the Northern Ontario Resource Development Support Fund for engineering and construction services for the widening and reconstruction of Seymour Street.

To proceed, the city requires engineering services to complete the preliminary designs.

• READ: '2 of the 5 worse roads in northern Ontario are in North Bay, CAA says'

“It'll improve safety and just improve one of the major thoroughfares in the city,” said city councillor Chris Mayne.

“It's surprising how much traffic there is there – basically, people taking Seymour rather than Trout Lake Road, which is just heavily congested these days… This is one of the areas that's growing in the city and it's time we made some investments in it.”

North Bay city councillor Chris Mayne spoke with CTV News about the next phase of the Seymour Street reconstruction project on June 28, 2024. (Eric Taschner/CTV News Northern Ontairo)

Mayne told CTV News that once the designs are complete, the city will try to secure further funding from other levels of government before construction work can begin.

The environmental work that was performed 11 years ago was deemed sufficient to proceed to construction at that time. Since more than 10 years have elapsed, Tatham's role will be to produce an addendum to the Municipal Class Environmental Assessment (EA,) which will involve a review of the planning and design process and the current environmental setting to ensure "the project and the mitigation measures are still valid”.

Once the Class EA addendum has been concluded and tabled, the detailed design will be finalized.

“There's also a lot of road sign traffic because of the college campus in the area. There are a lot of kids on the roadside,” said Mayne.

“It's all part of investing in the infrastructure in the city. Each year we try and look at something new and this is the area of focus for this year.”

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Six proposals were scored and evaluated by city staff, with the evaluations considering experience and qualifications, statement of understanding and methodology, work plan, project schedule, risk management and price. The proposal from Tatham Engineering Ltd. scored highest and a staff report found it provides the best overall value to the city.

“Their bid is considered fair and reasonable,” reads the report.