Sudbury city council stalls Transportation Master Plan

After years on the drawing board, the blueprint for transportation in Greater Sudbury is getting another month of fine-tuning.

Sudbury city council voted Tuesday night to re-work its Transportation Master Plan to incorporate citizen input.  The master plan is meant to envision how Sudburians will get around the city in the years to come.

City council also asked staff to lay out a detailed blueprint for how the plan will be put into effect.

City councillor Fern Cormier said he had already waited years for a plan, so he was okay with waiting 30 more days.

"We want to get this right," he said.

"We want to get it done in such a way that we can actually implement something. Not a 500 page document that sitting on the shelf that we don't want to touch, because really we didn't do that good a job on it the first time around."

City councillor Deb McIntosh requested yet another report detailing future road projects that tax dollars are currently being spent on.

"So, we can make decisions as a council, if we want to continue down this road, no pun intended, or change course," McIntosh said.

One of the proposed roads in the master plan is the straightening of the s-curve on the Kingsway.

Since last year, the city had spent $1.3 million buying properties for the Kingsway project, even though it has never specifically been voted for by council.

After the master plan is approved, there will be subsequent studies on transportation in Sudbury, including a public transit master plan. 

Work on that plan is expected to continue through 2017.