The next steps for a proposed Central Avenue roundabout are on hold after a tied council vote to award the design contract pushed the decision, potentially to next year.
Talks of a potential redesign for the intersection connecting Central Avenue to 2nd, 3rd and 4th Streets initially sparked in October 2024 after a report brought before council detailed issues with lack of pedestrian signals and traffic congestion when commuting between the east and west sides of town. The report noted that a roundabout was the best way to solve the problem, and the lengthy process began.
Since then, the Town of Fort Frances has received only one bid for the design work. KGS Group of Winnipeg, a firm that conducted the feasibility study on the intersection in 2025. The initial bid submitted was for $256,000 plus taxes; the town had committed a budget of $200,000 to this component of the work, with 90 per cent coming from the Connecting Links Funding program. Negotiations eventually led to a reduced bid, with KGS willing to do the design for $210,648 plus taxes.
The decision of whether or not the town moves forward with this price and award the contract was reviewed during last week’s council meeting.
“I hate getting one bid for these kind of jobs, because we really have no choice, either you take it or you leave it, and I’m not sure we’re at the point where we can leave it,” Coun. Mike Behan said during the meeting.
“I applaud the administration and KGS working together to lower their costs and their bids so that it’s lower than it could have been. So, in that case, I will support this.”
Behan’s show of support to move forward with the designs was met with varied opinions from the remaining councillors, leading to the tied vote that halted the motion.
Coun. Bill Morrison believes the final cost for the actual construction of a roundabout style intersection is too high, with the updated estimate received being far more than what they initially considered moving ahead with.
“The Central Avenue intersection lights need an upgrade for aging and are due for replacement, and you definitely need a dedicated pedestrian crossing,” Morrison said.
“But if we look at the numbers given to us over the past 18 months, the picture has changed.”
Council was initially told that rebuilding the intersection with traffic lights and a crosswalk would cost ranging from $700,000 – $1 million. Cost presented for the roundabout at the time were comparable at $1 – $2 million.
The updated estimates following the KGS feasibility study put the leg work and construction of the roundabout costing roughly $4.7 million. “That’s not a small increase — that’s millions more than initially estimated,” Morrison said.
“There are other alternatives to that intersection that can be done cost efficiently, safely and bring it up to standard and to do it responsibly, without spending millions more than initially estimated. Good government is about making smart choice with taxpayer dollars, not the most expensive ones.”
Coun. Steven Maki took the opportunity prior to the vote to reiterate that there has yet to be a final decision on whether or not a roundabout will be constructed. “I want the public to understand that it has not been decided that a roundabout is happening,” he said. “We are simply going forward — if this goes ahead tonight — to get an engineer’s design to determine whether it’s feasible to create a roundabout once we’ve also gotten detailed expenses towards the rehabilitation of the existing intersection’s traffic lights.”
Viewpoint of town operations
Travis Rob, the operations and facilities manager in Fort Frances, was immediately asked what happens next following the tie. There is no simple answer to that question.
“The traffic signal system in that intersection is failing,” Rob said. “It’s well, well, well beyond end of life, and since it was installed, a lot of regulations and rules around traffic signals have changed, so unfortunately, I can’t just go and replace the controller.”
Rob noted that the funding from the Connecting Links program was applied to specifically for the construction of a roundabout style intersection. Deciding instead to redesign it with working lights, signals and a crosswalk would result in forfeiting the approved funds and reapplying next year with this design in mind.
“Cost estimates for that are around $200,000 for the design portion only,” Rob said.
Intersections eligible for the Connecting Links Funding program require the submission of a drawing called a PHM-125. Rob said this drawing is essentially a legal survey to ensure the location meets engineering and design standards.
“The reconstruction of Central Avenue — or the redesign with the signals and the reason that it is as in depth as it is — is in order to complete PHM-125 drawings,” Rob said.
“To meet the MTO standards and guidelines, we would be looking at a complete intersection reconstruction. Replacing, relocating all of the conduits, poles, fixtures, adding pedestrian heads, pedestrian buttons, realigning the lanes, the islands and reprogramming a lot of the signals so that it’s functional as a modern signalized intersection.”
The KGS feasibility study gave an updated estimate for the construction portion of keeping signals in the intersection at $3 million. Granted it’s a significantly lower cost than the updated roundabout estimates, Rob said that regardless of how they do a redesign to keep the site on a signal system, it fails to meet traffic volume demands when accounting for growth in the community, where a roundabout passes them.
“When you look at potential traffic volume growth at a signalized intersection, even redesigned, reconstructed, the intersection again is back at a situation where it is failing to meet the capacity demands,” he said.
“The roundabout option not only got rid of the costs associated operationally with signalizing the intersection, but the intersection now met current and future projected traffic volumes.”
Rob also highlighted that because money allocated by the Connecting Links Funding program can only be put towards eligible highway locations, which Fort Frances has two of, Scott Street through Central Avenue and into the four-lane King’s Highway. The funding for these projects cannot be reallocated to make repairs to other town roads that were not part of the original application.
Next steps forward
The future of the intersection now depends on how the council will vote on motions in future meetings.
“At this point, to do anything, they need to pass a motion to reconsider,” Rob said.
“How the vote lands on that motion, depending on which way they end up going, it’s going to be very interesting. They have a very hard thing they need to do at that council meeting, I’m not going to sugarcoat it. From a decision making standpoint, they’re in a tough spot.”
“They’re going to have to file a motion to reconsider the decision to move forward with the roundabout, and because of the rules along how those motions have to be voted on, they have a very challenging task to get everybody, on one side of the issue or the other to actually make some moves,” Rob continued.
These motions are currently planned to be brought up in the first council meeting of May.
“The reality is that the signals there are going to fail and they’re so old that replacement repair parts don’t exist. It’s not just that they’re hard to come by, they absolutely don’t exist. So, when the eventuality of that intersection failing happens, then what?” Rob said.
“That’s what I’m faced with from the operation side of things. I need to try and have a contingency plan in my brain of what happens in the event that this fails.
“And this is what I’m trying to get council to support, in principle, is the fact that there will be a day in the not tremendously distant future where the signalization of that intersection fails, and then what? And every time that we delay making a decision on this project, we’re one day closer to that reality, and we need to start figuring out how to handle this while we have Connecting Links’ support because otherwise it’s just 100 per cent on our reserves to try and fund it and our reserves can’t handle a $3 million reconfiguration project.”
