Lancaster Drive Sidewalk

As part of the City’s ongoing efforts to make it easier to get around Kingston through active modes of transportation and improved pedestrian safety, a new sidewalk is being constructed along the north side of Lancaster Drive between Limestone Drive and Jasper Court.

Community input was collected through the City’s online Get Involved Kingston platform from June 19, 2023, to July 10, 2023; this input has informed the locations for benches to be placed along Lancaster Drive as part of the upcoming sidewalk construction.

Summary of Feedback and Responses

During the engagement, 249 visitors viewed the Get Involved Kingston project page, 9 of whom offered feedback through the interactive maps by dropping pins to mark locations they would like to see future rest areas. Additionally, several residents contacted the project manager directly to offer feedback.

Participants noted a desire for benches to be placed in the general vicinity of schools and transit in addition to centralized locations to provide resting areas. The proposed locations will be reviewed taking into consideration AODA requirements and existing constraints within the right of way to determine the best placements.

The City also received comments and questions regarding the proposed design and scope of work. A summary of these comments and questions, and additional information from the project team are included below.

The map below depicts the general locations selected by participants that were considered by staff.

Figure 1: Map of interactive pins for rest areas

Sidewalk alignment - inquiries about the sidewalk location adjacent to curbing

The sidewalk is intended to provide space for pedestrians away from vehicle traffic along Lancaster Drive. The alignment of the sidewalk is designed based on existing constraints along the corridor, including the presence of existing utilities and trees.

Concerns about the relatively steep cross-slope of the sidewalk at certain locations

Residents have noted that the existing driveway slopes along Lancaster Drive are steeper than typical city guidelines for sidewalk. Constructing this sidewalk to provide a direct pedestrian connection is an improvement over existing conditions and allows students continuing to St. Teresa of Calcutta Catholic School and Lancaster Drive Public School to cross to the south at Lancaster/Limestone where a school crossing guard is in place. The variation in the steepness of the boulevard and resulting sidewalk areas occurs in other locations along Lancaster and in the neighbourhood, based on the elevations of the existing boulevard areas. The new sidewalk will match the existing slopes of the driveway where needed and transition to gentler slopes where possible.

Pedestrian crossings

As part of this project a pedestrian crossover is being installed at the Lancaster Drive/Newhall Drive intersection to provide an additional north/south crossing in addition to the existing all-way stop and crosswalk at Limestone Drive.

A Pedestrian crossover is also being installed at Lancaster Drive/Bentley Terrace as part of a separate construction project.

Some felt that a sidewalk was not necessary for this section of Lancaster Drive

The sidewalk along the north side of Lancaster was identified as part of work that the City’s “Safe Routes to School” program, which reviews neighbourhood routes for students, gaps in our infrastructure, and barriers to students walking to school, and identifies recommendations along preferred routes to provide better and safer active connections for students traveling to and from school. This program identified this missing sidewalk along the north side of Lancaster Drive as a recommendation to allow students to continue along a direct connection to the elementary schools to the west. This will also allow any pedestrians (e.g. Holy Cross students) to continue north along Limestone Drive up to Woodbine Road without having to cross Lancaster Drive to the south and then back to the north again at Limestone Drive.

Next steps

The City is reviewing the feedback received to finalize the locations for rest areas as part of the final design of the sidewalk. The project is expected to be issued for tender in Summer 2023 with construction starting in Fall 2023 or Spring 2024. Additional information will be shared on this project page when the construction project timelines are confirmed.