With traffic signals at the Central Avenue intersection continuing to age well past their life cycle, Coun. Bill Morrison Jr. has brought forward a motion to revisit the feasibility of all possible upgrade options, including the costs of bringing existing lights to current standards, replacing them or moving ahead with a proposed—and controversial—roundabout.
The future of the intersection where the four-laners begin has been a hotly debated item in Fort Frances for years. The conversation began in October 2024, when 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. Because the signals currently in place have aged far past their expected usage and regularly face issues functioning, something needed to be done.
A feasibility report from then found that a roundabout would be the most efficient solution to upgrade the intersection’s infrastructure; however, a price point that continued to move up from the initial estimate sparked debate amongst council that eventually led to a tied vote on the next course of action. Now, as a new council prepares for their term, the different possibilities will be looked at once again with an updated cost estimate.
“I just want to see the costs,” Morrison said. “I wasn’t here when council made the original resolution to make a roundabout in October 2024. At that time, it was estimated at $1-2 million; then KGS Group came in at about $4.7 million. Talking to local contractors, the cost would probably actually be over $5 million, so I just wanted to see what the alternatives were.”
In October 2024, the cost to rebuild the intersection with traffic lights and a crosswalk was estimated to range from $700,000-$1 million.
This was later updated to $3 million for the construction portion of the project alone, with additional costs for engineering plans to be added.
Despite still being significantly cheaper than the roundabout plan, studies from town administrative staff showed a signal system failed to meet long-term traffic volume demands accounting for community growth, while a roundabout surpassed them.
Regardless, the town applied specifically for funding to build a roundabout when submitting its application to the Ontario Connecting Links program, a provincial funding initiative run by the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) to assist municipalities pay for construction or maintenance of roads and bridges which are part of highways running through the communities.
At the time, this meant the roundabout was the only approved step forward without restarting the application process.
This funding would cover 90 per cent of construction costs up to a maximum of $5 million, meaning if the roundabout plan went over, the town would be on the hook for $500,000 plus any amount over the cap.
“Say it went up to $6 million, the town would be hooked for $1.5 million of that,” Morrison said. “It’s not that I’m against roundabouts either; it’s that money is tight for everybody right now, so I don’t want to have to raise taxes because we go over budget.”
Last spring, the council decided to not move forward with roundabout engineering plans from KGS Group of Winnipeg, the sole firm to place a bid on the project, however the directive to move ahead with a roundabout was and is still in place.
With no other bidders, the town withdrew its Connecting Links funding application last May as the continuing debate had caused a key deadline in the process to be missed.
This leads the intersection and roundabout situation to where it is following Monday evening’s meeting of council and Morrison’s motion for administrative staff to prepare updated feasibility reports for all upgrade possibilities for the next council term.
“I’ve talked to the MTO, and they said we can still reapply for funding,” Morrison said.
With a new term, council has a “fresh slate” and can choose to reconsider their directive and pursue a different outcome from a roundabout, CAO Marcel Michaels said.
“We haven’t done the design of the roundabout, and now the new council will give us direction on whether they want to do a design or do something else,” Michaels said. “We’ll be working on getting that information. In the meeting on Nov. 23, council can decide whether they want to go about what Coun. Morrison is speaking to in this motion or choose to go a different path.
“They also may want to delay it to the strategic planning session to see what other priorities there are and then make a final decision.”
