Heather Wright/The Independent
The roundabout at Petrolia Line and Kimball Road likely won’t be built until at least 2026.
But Lambton County is making steps to get the plans for thr traffic calming circle ready this year.
Over the past decade, there have been calls for the intersection which has been the site of 13 accidents over the last decade. The big push for change in May 2020 when a Glencoe truck driver died at the corner. After the accident, then St. Clair Township Mayor Steve Arnold asked for money to be placed in the 2021 budget to build a roundabout. But years passed without the project moving forward.
In 2023, the current Mayor Jeff Agar pushed again for the project to move forward and an Environmental Assessment began. An engineer concluded the corner needed a roundabout.
Councillors agreed and referred the $3.8 million project to the 2024 budget.
During March 6 budget deliberation, Jason Cole, general manager of infrastructure and development said, the county needs more time to design the project and perhaps purchase land for the roundabout. And that would mean construction is some time away.
“2026 is a fair estimate,” said Cole. “We have not even completed the Environmental Assessment, so we don’t want to preclude the outcome of that Environmental Assessment. You heard a presentation outlining where that was going but it still needs to be finalized and then moving on to detail design and other pre design works such as municipal drain work, utility design and things like that, it is a significant effort at that location.
“Using the whole of 2025 to start to address those issues is reasonable. And then construction and 2026 would be I think the earliest we could get to it.”
Cole added the Forest Line and London Line roundabout is likely to be completed first, most likely in 2025.
