In the hopes of making things more accessible, on-street parking at a popular park in Blenheim will be getting a makeover.
On Monday night, council voted in favour of upgrading the on-street parking area along John Street West, frequently used by people visiting the Talbot Trail Place Blenheim Rotary Park. The upgrades will include paving the area and installing proper curbs, gutters, and drains.
John Street West has already been identified by the Municipality of Chatham-Kent as a road that needs improvements and will be getting worked on in the near future. Ward 2 Councillor Anthony Ceccacci was behind the motion to upgrade the on-street parking. He said that while work is already being done on the road, it makes sense to work on the parking area at the same time.
"One of the things I ran on, in regards to my campaign, was a common-sense approach," he said. "The common-sense approach is to fix [the parking area] when we're [working on] that road. Why would we pave the road and then have bad drainage and gravel going into our drains as well as water seeping into our infrastructure? Why not factor in the beautification of the park, factor in the accessibility issue?"
Accessibility was a big factor for Ceccacci in making the motion. Currently, the parking area is gravel but Ceccacci hopes that upgrading it to a hard surface will make it easier for residents to access the park. He said he recently saw first hand how gravel can make it hard for people with accessibility needs.
"The very last concert I went to, I saw a younger mom with a son struggling to get through the parking lot with a big geriatric chair," he explained. "I said to myself 'we have such a beautiful park, everybody should be able to enjoy this park so why not make it a little easier for them?'"
According to Christ Thibert, director of engineering and transportation, doing both projects at once would be the most cost-efficient approach, adding that the upgrading of the parking area would not be a substantial undertaking.
"The prime opportunity to combine the work from a cost standpoint and have the contractor there on-site would be at the same time as doing the road," he explained. "The project can be completed at a later time but there will be a little bit more of incremental cost as a result of it being a stand-alone contract rather than partnered up with an existing contract."
According to Thibert, the cost of upgrading the on-street parking is still being determined. The project will be placed in the 2020 budget and will go forward unless a councillor requests to pull it out during budget deliberations. Ceccacci said he's thankful to see the motion move on to the next steps.
"We have these private partnerships that have been involved in our community. The Ridge Landfill Community Trust, Blenheim Beautification Committee as well as the Rotary Club, they basically provided us with an in excess of $3 million park," he said. "I thought from a municipal standpoint, that [this] was the least that we could do."