A new motion being brought to Chatham-Kent council could be pushing for safer conditions on the Hwy. 401.
Councillor Trevor Thompson says either he or Councillor Jeff Wesley plans to present a motion at Monday night's council meeting in an effort to reduce the number of crashes along the Hwy. 401 in Chatham-Kent and increase driver safety.
"The gist behind the motion will be that something does, in fact, need to be done along the 401 corridor through Chatham-Kent to get some lane separation between the east and west-bound traffic. Clearly something needs to be done and we need to look to Queen's Park and the Ministry of Transportation to take some action on this issue," explains Thompson.
Thompson says he's seen petitions floating around the community regarding Hwy. 401 safety concerns, which he hopes will be addressed by the provincial government.
"I want to get all those petitions into each and every service centre in the municipality so we can take them to Queen's Park and we can get them read into the government through our MPP. That way, at least there's an official record of the concerns down here and puts a little more pressure on it," says Thompson.
Thompson says people drive over the median and crash into oncoming traffic every year in Chatham-Kent. He says this motion is not only to address safety concerns, but also to reduce congestion from these crashes.
"Whenever there's a 401 closure, the traffic on the arterial roads, our roads, and municipal roads gets really heavy and impacts everybody that lives and commutes on those roads," he says.
He adds that these frequent crashes are also a financial burden to the municipality.
"That's additional wear and tear, that's additional policing-- there's usually a couple of smaller incidents due to the heavy traffic. The MTO needs to understand that not only is there a safety component, there's also a dollars and cents component... it costs a lot of money when there's a 401 closure," explains Thompson.