Sault council wants highway safety improvements to be a priority in Ontario election

Sault Ste. Marie city council has asked Mayor Christian Provenzano to contact provincial political parties ahead of the June election to make improvements to Highway 17 north of the Sault a priority in the next term.

The motion by council points to frequent road closures between the Sault and Wawa and said expanding that stretch of road could mitigate the effects of those closures.

The motion by City Councillor Matthew Shoemaker points out the economic importance of Highway 17 north of the city, and how closures impact residents along the route.

"It backs up all economic activity for a significant period of time," said Shoemaker.

"It chokes people off who are in the northern areas from being able to access all the services that we provide for them in the urban centre like grocery stores, like the hospital."

Shoemaker said four-laning of the TransCanada Highway north of the Sault has been looked at for a number of years but has never truly gotten off the ground.

He said the pandemic essentially halted all but COVID-19-related business in the last two years, but said previous governments also failed to act.

"It's a provincial project and needs the provincial endorsement in order to move forward, and it hasn't got that from the previous Liberal government or from this PC government, and that's a failing on both their parts," Shoemaker said.

Sault Ste. Marie MPP Ross Romano defended the current Progressive Conservative government's infrastructure investments in the city.

"We have invested over $6 million just in connection links funding to double the lanes for Black Road, to resurface Trunk Road, and there's still more to come," said Romano.

"We continue to work on these things, (and) I would just ask any member of council who has a resolution, just pick up the phone and call me and we can talk about these things first."

Shoemaker said he would like to see an environmental assessment restarted for a bypass from Highway 17 East to 17 North, which was cancelled by the previous provincial Liberal government.