Comments on: Sidewalk encroachment fuels ire

By: Ron Leggett

Ron Leggett — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:21:29 +0000

I didn”t think the town staff made misteaks.

By: Fred

Fred — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 11:40:20 +0000

Mike, This is a good one, Thank you.. Grass is easy to replace, But Those tree’s are irreplaceable in our life time.. Per-Haps Others don’t mind someone coming onto there property and cutting down or destroying what is important to them – but others do…
Buy the way – the gas company borer’s his line under the ground with out disturbing much.. The Water and storm, sewage and hydro are under road not sidewalks..

By: Pam Beam Douglas

Pam Beam Douglas — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 22:50:46 +0000

Well put Patty!!!

By: Patty Mountain

Patty Mountain — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 12:56:48 +0000

First off we are receiving 7 million dollars of free upgrades, thank you Town of Fort Erie. Secondly, if the Town was perfect there would be no room for improvement and growth, people are to learn from their mistakes, so they need a little bit of land to widen our sidewalks and they forgot to ask us, did God not teach us all to be forgiving Christians? BUMP THIS! The new codes and laws in the 21st century do not allow parking within so many metres of a corner so no one is losing a parking space. I was born and raised in Fort Erie, more specifically Ridgeway and I am so sick of hearing how the Town never does anything to improve our streets or help our areas look nice. Now they are doing it and all you get is people whining because they are taking away what we always had. Get into the 21st century and spend your time making a successful business instead of being a PAIN in the lower extremities of forward thinking people!!!

By: Mike Cloutier

Mike Cloutier — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:45:16 +0000

The loss of those trees is devastating to the street. The addition of bumpouts at the intersections doesn’t make sense to me. If anywhere, a couple mid-block to protect the trees would have been great. They could improve the parking situation on Cutler to make up for the loss of a few parking spots on Ridge.

I think possibly the traffic control they are seeking with the intersection bumpouts could be served by making Hershey one way toward Ridge and Hibbard one-way to Propect. There’s also the issue of loading and unloading that isn’t helped by the new bumpouts. And if you want to turn right on Dominion to go to Fort Erie, and there’s a guy ahead waiting to turn left . . . you’re out of luck.

The final plan for the streetscape was not brought to council. This is where the council failed. The chairman of the public works committee, Bob Steckley, should have brought it to council to say, okay, here it is, your new Ridge Road.

I don’t believe the “urban braille” is helpful to people who can’t see.

And this fountain/water feature thingy at a “Civic Square,” that’s going to be a nightmare.

By: Keith Overend

Keith Overend — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:20:36 +0000

“Millar said residents had plenty of opportunity to make their views known. Every Ridge Road property owner was notified of the streetscape plan and a public open house to view the preliminary design was held at town hall.”
“Ridgeway BIA members were invited to three meetings at different stages of the project ”
First off I’m not a member of the BIA (I’m a residential property) so I was NEVER notified of any of the BIA meetings.
Secondly, every engineer, technician and technologist employed by the Town missed the encroachments, so how were ordinary citizens supposed to pick up on it? Even after I pointed out where the property line was to everybody who came by (from the Town and from Beam), I was told not to worry, the Town would not come onto private property. Then, one day they just cut down the trees on my property! Suprise! Even then they denied that they were going to encroach on my property. Lie after lie after lie.
As for the “urban braille” sidewalks which were considered such an important safety feature for the visually impaired, aparently it’s only important to cater to the blind in downtown cores, as the “braille” stops at the residential section, and no sidewalks in residential neighbourhoods contain this feature.
Lastly the bumpouts take a toral of 14 parking spaces away from a street that is already desperately short of parking. Leasing parking spaces down by the trail is not going to help with the parking squeeze up by Dominion Rd. We already have people park in our driveway many times a day because they are too lazy to walk one or two extra parking spaces. They park for 5 or 10 minutes to pick up Chinese food, 15 to 45 minutes if they shop at the Dollar Store or up to 3 days if they are getting drunk at Ridgeway’s Restaurant. Neither the police nor bylaw enforcemant will do anytthing about this parking problem. In fact I have been threatened by a past Staff Sargent at the Fort Erie detachment if I ever called again about a parking issue! Nice.
We paid thousands of dollars to construct a circular driveway so we would have access from at least one driveway (most of the time). When the Peoples Church hosts a funeral or wedding, we usually have both driveways blocked.
Now it will be much worse.
Downtown Ridgeway’s design had worked for almost 200 years, why did they screw it up?

By: Mike Cloutier

Mike Cloutier — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:34:30 +0000

I don’t know where Royal Manor Drive is.

By: George Jardine

George Jardine — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 05:59:21 +0000

The Town stealing land that does not belong to the Town, encroaching on peoples frontage happens to much, some people have lost ten feet of frontage through enlargement of storm ditches they are paying taxes on land that the Town has stolen off them.case in point Royal Manor Drive.