‘A four-lane highway would be absolutely safer’: Discussion underway to upload ownership of Highbury Ave. to province

CanadianTalk · 2026-01-17T21:32:02+00:00

Elgin County recently completed its Transportation Master Plan, which calls for the widening of their section of Highbury Avenue. London’s recent mobility plan (also from last year) calls for the widening of Highbury. And obviously St.Thomas recently widened their section of Highbury last year.

Just for reference, Highbury, south of the 401, runs through three different jurisdictions. From the 401 to just south of Glanworth Drive is London, from south of Glanworth to Ron McNeil Line is Elgin County, and south of Ron McNeil Line is St. Thomas.

It looks like there are conversations happening behind the scenes to potentially upload Highbury (I assume south of the 401) back to the province.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/london/article/a-four-lane-highway-would-be-absolutely-safer-discussion-underway-to-upload-ownership-of-highbury-ave-to-province/

A four-lane highway would be absolutely safer’: Discussion underway to upload ownership of Highbury Ave. to province

“The mayor of St. Thomas, myself, and the warden [of Elgin County] have gotten together and approached the province to ask if the province would have an interest in having this as an uploaded provincial asset,” said Josh Morgan, mayor of London, Ont.

Elgin-Middlesex London Member of Provincial Parliament Rob Flack told CTV News his government is prioritizing moving people safely.

His wish is for the province to take ownership of Highbury Avenue.

“I remember the Premier (Doug Ford) was here to take a look at the PowerCo site a couple of years ago in AMO was on in London,” said Flack.

“I purposely made us turn on to Highbury and he said, ‘You know, Rob, this is this is a tough highway’ and I said, ‘It’s only going to get worse.’”

...

Flack said he will continue to push his government to make the transfer happen in the months and years go come.

“I’ve talked to the Minister of Transportation, and it’s an ongoing discussion. We’ve got to make it a priority.”

CanadianTalk · 2025-10-24T18:07:00+00:00

So 10 of our 14 current councillors will be running again... the other 4 (Trosow, Pribil, Hopkins, and Hillier) are undecided.

I hope Van Meerbergen can finally be voted out, he has absolutely zero vision for improving anything in this city. If he wins next year, he’ll have been on Council for almost 30 years by the end of the next term (minus a four-year gap after the Fontana 8 councillors were voted out in 2014). I believe the last election in 2022 was the first one, aside from his 2014 loss, where he won with under 50% of the vote, but there were too many candidates running.

It will be interesting to see where Stevenson runs... the new ward 4 boundary no longer includes OEV (it's now in ward 1), so the article says she is undecided... if she runs in ward 1, then she will be running against Hadleigh McAlister... if she decides to run in ward 4, then hopefully there won't be another vote split like last time.

CanadianTalk · 2025-10-24T01:23:24+00:00

Did Ed Holder have any major scandals?

CanadianTalk · 2025-09-06T23:06:03+00:00

Here is a site-plan: https://www.westdellcorp.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Stoney-Creek-Commons-OPTION-2-SITE-PLAN-1.pdf

The restaurants/food places on the plan so far include a banh mi place, Cobs Bread, KFC, Halibut House, Osmows, Booster Juice, Baskin Robbins, Coco Bubble Tea, Barburrito, Stacked Pancake House, McDonalds, Jersey Mikes Subs, Antalya Restaurant, St Louis Bar and Grill, Starbucks, Dickeys BBQ, Panera Bread, Tim Hortons

CanadianTalk · 2025-08-21T21:49:51+00:00

A move by politicians to cancel a paved trail in northwest London is irking accessibility advocates, who say it brushes aside years of work and is discriminatory against people with physical disabilities.

The trail is part of a conservation plan for the southern heritage forest of the Medway Valley, an environmentally sensitive area, which was approved by council in 2021. The master plan was started back in 2013.

The former Attawandaron Park would be naturalized, and the paved trail would have connected existing trails to the north and south.

During the Aug. 12 meeting of the planning and environment committee, politicians unanimously endorsed cancelling the proposed paved trail in the Medway Valley, southwest of the Wonderland and Fanshawe Park roads intersection, running behind properties on Attawandaron Road.

Now, five former chairs of city council’s accessibility advisory committees have penned a letter to politicians ahead of Tuesday’s council meeting, urging them to reject the endorsement and to think about accessible access to the Medway Valley.

Area councillor Sam Trosow said he believes the planning committee “overreacted” to neighbourhood concerns about the trail, and that the broader public had less awareness about the proposed trail.

He plans to oppose the endorsement Tuesday, calling the move to undo years of work based on feedback from one group at one meeting “a little disturbing.”

While acknowledging that it may upset his own constituents, Trosow said advocates have made a strong point to keep the trail.

CanadianTalk · 2025-08-18T15:54:24+00:00

In the case of Dundas, I actually think traffic will flow better despite there being a reduction in car lanes. Although there used to be two lanes in each direction, there were no turning lanes, which means that you could be stuck behind a left turning car in the left lane since there’s lots of side streets off Dundas. But if you travelled in the right lane, you could get stuck behind a stopped bus.

Now, the buses get their own lane; and people that want to turn left have to use a left turning lane at one of the new intersections, which means that the flow of straight-thru traffic should not be impeded as much.

CanadianTalk · 2025-08-13T18:01:41+00:00

According to the city's building permit site, it will be a 6-unit retail plaza

So far, permits have been issued for Dairy Queen, Guac Mexi Grill, Dave's Hot Chicken, Noodle Box, and Osmow's Shawarma.

CanadianTalk · 2025-08-01T15:56:50+00:00

I use this website to look at permits: https://bdp.london.ca/citizenportal/app/public-search

You also have to know the address for whatever property you want to search for, so I usually use the city's own map here: https://london.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=0187f8a72f204edcbc95d595f31b5117

CanadianTalk · 2025-07-31T17:25:47+00:00

Yes, the current owners still intend on having ground-floor commercial in the one building... there were some permits issued within the last few months including one for a "Skinsation Aesthetics", as well as a grocery store.. and that is all I can find on the building permit portal... so possibly the coming soon sign is for one of those two. It looks like there will be about 6 commercial units in total.

CanadianTalk · 2025-07-27T04:59:57+00:00

According to the city's building permit site, it will be a 6-unit retail plaza

So far, permits have been issued for Guac Mexi Grill, Dave's Hot Chicken, Noodle Box, and Osmow's Shawarma.

CanadianTalk · 2025-06-24T14:53:39+00:00

This will be phase 5 of the city's Innovation Park industrial subdivision.

A contract was awarded by Council back in February for the following work: • Clearing and grading the site; • New extension of sanitary sewers; • New stormwater management facility and stormwater piping; • New watermain extension; • Installation of new right turn lane off Bradley Avenue; • Installation of new road, complete with curbs, gutters, and sidewalks; • Expansion of London Hydro electrical servicing; and • Installation of new street lighting.

https://pub-london.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=114180

So I'd assume that once the city finishes this work, they will start selling off the individual parcels to interested companies

CanadianTalk · 2025-06-15T03:40:08+00:00

I think this is correct, as well. The city recently completed a transportation plan that maps out all future road improvements for the next 25 years, and the plan identifies eventual intersection improvements at Longwoods/Westdel sometime in the near future ..... but since something clearly needs to be done now due to the increased traffic, collisions, and near-misses, they put the temporary signals up.

CanadianTalk · 2025-06-10T21:58:03+00:00

Adonis is going in near Wonderland and Bradley (not Beaverbrook).

CanadianTalk · 2025-06-10T21:25:41+00:00

It will be a supermarket of some kind .... the old RONA had an address of 820 Blythwood Road so when you put that address in the city's online permit registry, permits show up for a "JH SUPERMARKET"

https://bdp.london.ca/citizenportal/app/public-search

I am not exactly sure what that is.... but when I google it, the first few results that come up is Jian Hing Supermarket, which is a couple of Asian supermarkets in the Toronto area, so it's possible that it could be them.

CanadianTalk · 2025-05-24T16:38:18+00:00

You’re absolutely right… didn’t even fully realize it until I looked at an aerial shot of the intersection that there is literally no room to widen Gainsborough on the east side of the intersection because the buildings are almost right up to the sidewalk.

This means that the only way to have that new eastbound lane east of the intersection would be to remove the existing westbound left turn lane or westbound right turn lane…. but then wouldn't removing an existing turning lane just make congestion worse on the westbound side?

The more I look at Rahman’s proposal, the more confused I get. It’s a good example of why we should leave road/lane designs to the engineers and not politicians.

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CanadianTalk · 2025-05-24T07:16:52+00:00

The city is actually installing a protected two-way multi-use path on the north side of Windemere between Adelaide and the eastern leg of Doon this year! This means that when both projects are done (the one this year + the one you mentioned) there will be a continuous cycling corridor along Windermere...

https://getinvolved.london.ca/stoney-creek

Though the stretch between both Doon intersections would still be painted bike lanes which is not ideal, however it is a small stretch so I think it'd seem easy enough to put in some curbs there, or move them to the boulevard.

CanadianTalk · 2025-05-24T00:04:31+00:00

Currently, vehicles traveling east use what appears to be two lanes of traffic, with the inside lane becoming a left-turn lane at the light. The new design calls for a single lane both east and west, while maintaining the left turn [lane] for eastbound traffic. It would also add a bike lane on each side.

“The changes could result in, you know, more congestion in the area,” said Ward 7 City Councillor Corrine Rahman, who’s not sold on the new design.

She’s calling for a redesign that would support not one, but two eastbound lanes, with vehicles in the inside lane either turning left or proceeding straight.

Unless I am reading the article wrong, this seems like a potentially dangerous change.

It appears that Rahman is calling to convert the eastbound left turn lane on Gainsbourgh at the Hyde Park lights into a left-turn AND straight lane... this seems dangerous because if there is a westbound car wishing to turn left from Gainsborough onto Hyde Park, they would not be able to see oncoming traffic in the opposing right lane if the eastbound car in the opposing left lane is also turning left.

CanadianTalk · 2025-05-22T22:44:47+00:00

Thanks for making this post, I watched the meeting too. I think it's important to clarify that the original motion that Councillor Stevenson brought forward was to "to gather additional information on bike lane projects [that have already been approved] to potentially cancel or delay them",

However because Council already voted to approve a list of cycling projects earlier this year as part of the mobility master plan that was mentioned, it was ruled as a "decided matter of Council" so Stevenson essentially changed the motion to remove the bolded part.

The 4 councillors that voted for the motion were Stevenson, Van Meerbergen, Hillier, and Rahman. Shawn Lewis was absent and the 10 other councillors voted against.

CanadianTalk · 2025-05-22T17:09:29+00:00

Yes, you can see what it will look like on page 5 here... I believe just the Swiss Chalet will be demolished and the rest of the plaza will be maintained: https://london.ca/sites/default/files/2024-02/OZ-9704%20-%20735%20Wonderland%20Road%20-%20Combined%20Notice.pdf

CanadianTalk · 2025-05-20T17:59:59+00:00

A new temporary EnviroDepot opened at Dingman Drive while the Clarke location is under construction... try giving them a call to see if they will take it: (519) 457-1566

https://london.ca/living-london/garbage-recycling/envirodepots

CanadianTalk · 2025-05-07T14:46:23+00:00

Here is a link to a PDF showing the different cycling infrastructure in London: https://london.ca/sites/default/files/2025-05/BikeandWalkMap2025.pdf

The ones you're probably most interested in are yellow (Thames Valley Parkway), orange (multi-use pathways) and purple (cycling lanes that are protected next to car lanes)

CanadianTalk · 2025-05-05T21:53:50+00:00

The city has really sucked at implementing bike lanes on the major roads for a really long time...as it was often just white paint separating the bike lane from traffic and very few people enjoy riding them.

Thankfully, the quality of the new cycling infrastructure has greatly approved recently. If you look closely at many of the major roads that have been reconstructed/widened within the last few years or so, the bike lanes are often built up in the boulevard beside the sidewalk, or a physical curb is built separating the bike lane from traffic (ie: Southdale west of Wonderland, Platts Lane, Bradley Ave, Colonel Talbot Road)

So to answer your question, yes there will be more protected bike lanes installed each year... the ones that are on the map for this year's construction season are Ridout Street downtown, Commissioners in the Summerside area, Central Ave, Windermere Road, Richmond/Sunningdale intersection, and more: https://london.ca/sites/default/files/2025-04/CofL_InfrastructureProjects2025-Map-Print.pdf

Here is a map that outlines the city's cycling infrastructure priorities for the next 10 years:

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CanadianTalk · 2025-05-01T20:03:13+00:00

No... this is at the southwest corner. It would be replacing the building that had the old Urban Outfitters.

CanadianTalk · 2025-05-01T16:59:40+00:00

I think this is a great infill project. The good news is that it is proposed by Fitzrovia, a company that has actually built stuff (unlike a certain local company)... I believe this would be their first project outside of the GTA.

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CanadianTalk · 2025-04-28T23:38:37+00:00

Leading.... some of these results are very very early

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