Community Issues

New Plan for Intersection of Belair Rd, Sunshine, Bradshaw, and Jerusalem

In December 2016, SHA stated that they have approval from the head office to begin efforts to completely redesign this intersection. They are working under constraints of the cemetery and some adjacent property owners who "refuse to budge" on giving up right-of-way. (The state can always "take" it if it is in the best interests of the general public.)

On April 19, 2017, representatives of SHA came to a meeting of the Greater Kingsville Civic Association to discuss a possible concept for improving this intersection. Unfortunately, the meeting was first used for a general discussion of the ongoing fiasco at Mt Vista - the expensive, messy installation of a roundabout which has been strongly opposed and hated by all residents since first mentioned as a possibility about 10 years ago. That put the attendees (well over a hundred) in an angry mood against anything that SHA might suggest, and lead to an overwhelming disapproval of the concept plan they presented. One needs to remember that, over 10 years ago, they presented the Mt Vista circle as "just a concept", and then went ahead with it in spite of major opposition from residents.

The following is the concept plan that they presented:

It continues to appear that a better solution is to reroute Sunshine to go behind JSI and the old Liquor store in order to come out onto Belair Rd at the same place as Bradshaw to avoid the "jog", something that always causes problems. It would use a small portion of the old Liquor store parking lot which they do not use (except for illegal parking of vehicles) and portions of JSI's "junk yard". Neither could claim "hardship" for such "taking". It makes no sense to do all this work just to replace the "jug" with a "jog".

Potential solutions that the people of Kingsville would likely support whole-heartedly:

1. The "Big Dig" - build a tunnel directly from the Big Gunpowder Bridge to the Little Gunpowder Bridge for through traffic and return Belair Rd to 2 lanes for local traffic only, with no traffic lights needed in Kingsville.
2. "Take" sufficient land from JSI and the Liquor store and widen Belair Rd on the north west side to put in real left-turn lanes. Both would get a significant pay-off so that both could build a new buiding to the rear of the existing properties, or the former could setup shop elsewhere where there is sufficient space.
3. Try the "Alternate Plan" that I have been proposing since 1997.

It appears that the real sticking point in this is that St John's Parish will be unwilling to give up the vacant property for the rerouting of Jerusalem Rd. They didn't even know about this concept before this meeting was announced. This is strange since, back in December, an SHA rep indicated to me that other potential solutions were dropped due to not being able to reach an agreement with other property owners (apparently referring to JSI).