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September 15, 2026

 Traffic, Traffic and a lack of direction


The Town Official Plan is a high-level guidance document that dictates how the municipality grows and develops.    It is reviewed and approved by the provincial Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.


Many Pelham residents, especially those who have made this home for a number of years, are seeing and feeling a negative impact of growth.  That being the number of vehicles on our streets and our ability to transit from one side of town to the other.  What used to be a few minutes is at times now being a half hour to get through town.


There are only two regional routes that transit through Pelham, highway 20 is the east/west center, Weber Road near our southern border and an absence of routes to the north through Effingham/St Johns.


Fonthill now has a “rush hour”.  People are commuting to/from work or school.  Pelham only has one capable traffic route in/out of town this being Highway 20.   Highway 20 also carries traffic from the Hamilton area to Niagara Falls.   It is an overflow to the QEW.



There are reasons for this increasing traffic congestion.  


  • Past growth in homes; development brings more vehicles and more commuters.
  • Lack of carrying capacity of the major arteries through town.   Roads have not been upgraded sufficiently to handle the growth.   Hwy 20 was first laid down in the 1930s. 
  • What is even worse is that there are no executable plans from the Town, Region or Province to improve traffic routes.
  •  Future growth.  The Town and Province are aggressively pushing for more growth (see Fenwick east) in the center of our municipality which will further aggravate the traffic issues.  Many of the grants the Town received are given in support of new home growth.


The Town Official Plan focuses on how to manage the details for growth and development.  It addresses what you can build where.   Fonthill and Fenwick are the targeted growth areas.  On page 8 of the Official Plan it states: “the settlements of Fonthill and Fenwick will absorb almost all new residential growth”.  


There is some narrative on restricting new access to Hwy 20, “New development that abuts Highway 20 will front, face and feature Highway 20, however, no individual access will be permitted from Highway 20”.   This will help slow the growth in the number of interruptions to traffic flow on Hwy 20.    Vehicles from new growth will use existing intersections to access Hwy 20, just like everyone else, and thus Hwy 20 traffic will continue to worsen.


That's it! 


 There is no long-term plan for dealing with traffic congestion.


The Canboro Road Corridor , between Fenwick and Fonthill, is an important transportation linkage.   Having stated that the Official Plan identifies potential use and development that will not focus on improving traffic flow or capacity.  Page 97 The Official Plan.  


We can discount Canboro Road being part of our traffic solution.



The Town Official Plan does not address the more serious traffic flow problems in and around Fonthill.

 

The plan also ignores the situation worsening with future development in Fenwick and Fonthill.




The Town Council approved the Official Plan before it went to the Province for final approval earlier this year.


The lack of any part of the Official Plan dealing with roads /traffic congestion indicates the current Council members have not recognized and are not addressing our traffic issues. 


Since the current Mayor and Council are not part of the solution, they are part of the problem.

Do you want another four years of inaction, further lack of direction?


The next Mayor, next Council, will need to manage these controversial traffic discussions.   They will have to work with residents, businesses and developers.   The Region and the Province will need to be supportive. 


We need time for a comprehensive and transparent discussion with residents and property owners.  We should restrain ourselves from any large investments which will aggravate the situation - until a clear traffic solution is agreed upon.