By Kristen Shane

The Municipality of Kincardine’s public works committee wants more time to come up with a recommendation to council on whether to open a gated shoreline road to all passenger vehicles on a temporary basis.

The road is a stretch of Upper Lorne Beach Road at the juncture with Victoria Street that links Lorne Beach with Inverhuron. It is closed by a gate to all vehicle traffic except for Bruce Power buses to transport essential staff only when the B-Line (Bruce County Road 23) and Highway 21 are closed due to bad winter weather.

But a particularly wicked winter storm Dec. 10 prompted some residents and a council member to suggest opening the shoreline road temporarily, either from Dec. 1 to March 31 or only in bouts of bad winter weather.

The route, sheltered from most stormy weather by its shoreline layout, is considered by some to be a safer alternative than the more exposed B-Line and Highway 21.

Council tossed the gate issue back and forth at a meeting Jan. 13. It decided to send it to the committee for further review. It set a deadline for the committee to report back to council Feb. 3. Several council members expressed concern that if they left the issue too long, someone may be killed driving the B-Line when they could have had access to the gated road.

“We make better decisions when we have all the information in front of us,” said committee chair Laura Haight Monday, summing up most committee members’ opinions.

The committee talked about the issue for two hours Monday morning, during which time it heard from many of the 30 members of the public, councillors and emergency services personnel in attendance.

“There’s a lot of new opinions here that I never heard before,” said councillor Ron Hewitt. “Maybe we need to take a little bit more time.”

Committee members were generally against opening the road from Dec. 1 to March 31. Several said they would consider voting to open it when Highway 21 was closed or during winter storms. But when they considered the nitty-gritty of when and how the road could be opened, they ran into a series of roadblocks.

For instance, Ward 1 public works foreman Don Huston indicated that staff would be unable to plow the narrow shoreline road if it were open to two lanes of regular traffic.

Councillor Gordon Campbell said he didn’t want to defer a recommendation to council. But the majority of the other members said they did.

Haight directed public works manager Jim O’Rourke to report to council Feb. 3 that the committee wants more time to speak with people who could be affected by the change and sort out unresolved questions. The committee also told O’Rourke to further lobby provincial and county governments on behalf of the municipality to make Highway 21 and the B-Line safer for winter drivers.