A motion from City Councillor Jeff Beattie (Ward 10 – Stoney Creek-Fruitland-Winona) passed at the city’s Public Works Committee last week, directing city staff to look at new measures for preventing trucks from accessing three winding Stoney Creek escarpment accesses.
Beattie’s ward has three escarpment access roadways – Fifty Road, McNeilly Road, and Dewitt Road – which have never been a part of the city’s approved truck route but continue to see traffic from full-size tractor trailers.
“It’s happening day after day, week after week,” explained Beattie.
“Last month there were literally three trucks in a row stuck at the hairpin turn at the top of one of the escarpment accesses,” he told the committee.
The city has improved signage and tried increasing police enforcement, but trucks continue to use the roadways, all three of which have a steep grade, narrow lanes, and hairpin turns.
Beattie says that the road closures due to stuck trucks have been impacting locals, the economy, and require the use of city resources, including first responders and transportation staff.
His motion directs staff to implement “any and all measures possible to restrict or further dissuade illegal truck access” on the roads, “including but not limited to additional signage, lighting, warning devices, and physical road alterations.”
The motion also says that any access controls requiring additional authorization or funding from Council should be presented back to the Public Works Committee for consideration.
Commenters on Beattie’s social media suggested height restriction bars before the accesses, but it is unclear if that is feasible as a solution since the roads are lawfully used by agricultural equipment, such as combines, grape harvesters, and other large tractors, between farms in upper and lower Stoney Creek.
City of Hamilton staff added that they have also been having discussions with mapping companies, such as Google Maps, so that truck drivers will not be directed by their GPS systems to take any of the Stoney Creek escarpment access routes.
The city has a GPS layer on the City of Hamilton website that is available to logistics companies for route planning, but that layer requires manual implementation.
City staff also encouraged residents to take note of the name of the company on trucks that are illegally using the Stoney Creek escarpment routes and to report that information to the city.
The city will then reach out to those companies through the economic development department to attempt to put a stop to future incidents.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
