Meaford receiving $1.3M grant to help upgrade part of Sykes St. N.

For the third time since 2016, Meaford has been approved for a provincial Connecting Links grant to help upgrade a part of its main urban thoroughfare.

The municipality learned this week that it will receive just over $1.3 million from the Ministry of Transportation funding program towards the $2.8-million cost to reconstruct Sykes Street North, between Collingwood and Lombard streets, and replace its underground pipes.

Meaford Mayor Barb Clumpus said the full reconstruction will involve a “critical section” of Sykes Street, which has some infrastructure dating back 126 years.

“This announcement is most welcome at this time as we begin to plan for economic and operational recovery after COVID-19,” she said.

The MTO’s Connecting Links program helps municipalities pay the construction and repair costs for connecting links, which are municipal roads that connect communities to provincial highways and border crossings.

The 3.5-kilometre section of Meaford’s Sykes Street between Ford Avenue and the MTO operations yard near St. Vincent Street is considered the municipality’s connecting link for provincial Highway 26.

Meaford received $172,000 from the Connecting Links program in 2016 to help offset the cost to repave a one-kilometre stretch of Sykes Street North from Bayfield Street to Ford Avenue.

Two years later, it was granted $825,300 from the program to use towards the $1.2-million cost to rehabilitate the Sykes Street bridge that spans the Bighead River in downtown Meaford.

Council voted in October to seek funding under the program’s 2020-21 intake for the Sykes Street North infrastructure replacement and road reconstruction project.

Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Progressive Conservative MPP Bill Walker announced Thursday that the municipality’s application was successful.

Meaford CAO and development services director Rob Armstrong said the plan is to begin detailed engineering work for the project this year, with construction set to start next spring.

The Connecting Link grant will pay 90 per cent of “eligible costs,” which include the parts of the project that involve reconstructing the roadway and replacing stormwater infrastructure. Meaford’s share of that work is about $150,000 and will be covered by property tax dollars.

Meaford is planning to also replace the existing 150-millimetre cast iron watermain, which was installed under that section of road in 1894, and the underground sewer pipes and sidewalks, which were installed in 1966, as part of the overall project.

The municipality will be on the hook for those components, which will cost about $1.4 million. About $254,000 will be funded by property tax dollars, with the remaining $1.17 million covered by water/sewer system revenue.

Walker also announced that the province has approved an application from West Grey for $710,234 in Connecting Link funding to help the municipality rehabilitate the Garafraxa Street bridge in Durham.

A Nov. 19 report to West Grey council from CAO Laura Johnston said the municipality applied many times over the past few years for funding to improve the bridge, but had not been successful.

“Council has, in addition, made several delegations to the MTO at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association conferences to express concerns over the lack of maintenance on this vital part of the connecting link transportation network through Durham,” the report says.

In a statement from Walker, West Grey Mayor Christine Robinson said municipal officials are “thrilled” the funding has been approved, noting the work “will ensure this critical roadway remains open and, equally important, lays the groundwork for more work to come.

“This grant shows the importance of collaborative relationships with all orders of government and that two-way conversations and West Grey’s advocacy results in action.”