City council slams brakes on Kinach’s need for speed

The wheels have fallen off Ward 4 Coun. Stephan Kinach's bid for increased speed limits on Highway 17 east of Sault Ste. Marie.

City council voted nine to two to defeat Kinach's motion to have Mayor Matthew Shoemaker write a letter to Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria, asking for a 20-km/h increase on parts of the two-lane divided highway between Sault Ste. Marie to Thessalon.

The maximum speed limit there is currently 90 km/h.

The only supporter to Kinach's lonely quest for speed was fellow Ward 4 Coun. Marchy Bruni, who seconded his motion at last Monday's city council but didn't speak in favour of it.

"As somebody who is traveling a lot for work and for studies. I know lots of people in our community do have to travel outside of Sault Ste. Marie to get training for work, to upgrade education, for conferences, everything else," Kinach said.

"Even if you get an extra 15 minutes quicker to where you need to go, if it's Sudbury, if it's Toronto, it makes a big deal if you're traveling monthly, weekly."

"It's really nice to see that there's a speed increase by Parry Sound – 110 kilometres an hour. That's really helped my travel and cut down on time, because I've been going every about every three weeks back and forth."

"We can't physically move our city closer to Toronto or Sudbury or any other big city, but if we increase the speed limit, we can get there a little bit faster," Kinach said.

Ward 3 Coun. Angela Caputo referred to a resolution, introduced by Mayor Shoemaker in March 2022 and approved by council, asking the province to consider a four-lane Highway 17.

"Still, we have seen no change," Caputo said.

"In 2007 my cousin Marc Caputo was killed on Highway 17 North after a trip to Sudbury," she added.

"Mark and his girlfriend Melissa [Fava] headed back to Nipissing University, where they were both in their third years of study. They hit a patch of bad weather 12 kilometres outside of their destination of North Bay, and the vehicle got caught in the tire tracks of the one ahead of it, and Melissa was unable to fight off the weight of the slush.

"Their vehicle plunged across the next lane of traffic, which because we live in northern Ontario, was an oncoming lane of traffic, and they were both taken from their families that evening.

"How could this happen? Well, because our highway is not prioritized to be divided, and as [former Ontario premier and transportation minister] Kathleen Wynne put it at the time, the volume on this section of the Trans-Canada Highway doesn't justify the expense.

"So until our government begins to value the lives of folks in northern Ontario the same way that they do folks in southern Ontario, I will oppose increased speeds on these highways.

"Speed should not be the concern of this council, but keeping our citizens safe should be.

"Increasing speed on an inadequate highway, to me, is dangerous and irresponsible," Caputo said.

"If we are to concern ourselves with Highway 17 north, let's make it for the good of our citizens, and... not potentially put them further in harm's way down an unsafe highway."

Ward 1 Coun. Sandra Hollingsworth said there's been "a huge increase" in transport accidents.

"If anyone just recently went down to St Joe's island over the last day or couple days, you'll see a transport still in the ditch, a very large transport.

"Transport accidents are increasing. That's a fact. So increasing the speed on our section the highway potentially could increase more transport [accidents].

"We also have a large population of Mennonites that are moving in the area that depend on horse and buggies. Unfortunately we're seeing an increase in accidents in that area," Hollingsworth said.

Ward 4's Marchy Bruni and Ward 1's Lisa Vezeau-Allen both pointed out that Highway 17 is different from most divided highways because of its many points of access.

"You have secondary road access and there aren't the on- and off-ramps. So it's really a safety concern, and so at this point I think more consultation needs to be taken into place, because we're going into very many neighbouring communities, from Garden River First Nation, to Echo Bay to Bruce Mines to Desbarats and then into Thessalon.

"There's also a large number of school busses that are on that corridor, especially attending to CASS, so at this point, I'm not supporting this," Vezeau-Allen said.

"I don't think it has anything to do with our strategic direction as a corporation, as a council. It doesn't help our community development or quality of life, our infrastructure, our service delivery. I think it would be very unsafe."