Deputy mayor Terry Fisk wants the town to create a bypass that would allow horse and buggy traffic to avoid a busy section of Elora Street North coming into Harriston.
“A couple of weeks ago we had a near tragedy in this community with our Amish neighbours and I’ve asked before about trying to provide them with a bypass past the Tim Hortons’ situation,” said Fisk.
He was referring to a June 6 collision involving a car and a buggy between Harriston and Clifford, which sent 10 members of a local Amish family to the hospital.
“They have problems [near Tim Hortons] with the horses balking with the tractor trailers on both sides of the road and until now nothing’s been done with it and I strongly recommend that we look seriously at it – whether we have to have a staff report or what we need I don’t know – but there is a spot there that could potentially solve that issue,” he added.
Fisk was alluding to a section of former railway bed, currently blocked off to prevent use by motorized vehicles, that could be opened up to horse and buggy traffic.
The route would begin on Highway 9 between the Harriston Industrial Park and the edge of Harriston and allow travellers to travel west to John Street without passing the busy Tim Hortons at the north end of town.
Fisk said the idea was originally suggested to him by an Amish neighbour and he feels the route could be created with some grass cutting and a bit of gravel.
Mayor George Bridge pointed out a staff report, initiated after Fisk brought up the idea of a horse and buggy bypass at a previous meeting, is in the works.
“We are bringing a report back to you,” confirmed CAO Bill White.
Bridge said, “It certainly would help with the heavy weekend traffic days if someone wanted to come in and go to the grocery store and they could come in and go down John Street and not have to go through all the traffic.”
Again referencing the June 6 buggy crash near Clifford, Fisk said, “We don’t want to have something like that on our hands because of something that we could potentially have avoided.”
