Council moves toward ban on Dawson Rd trucks

A ban on transport trucks on Dawson Road may be rolling ahead, with Thunder Bay city councillors planning to draft a bylaw to stop big rigs from using the road as a shortcut.

Council voted Monday night to have administration examine ways to enforce traffic restrictions so that long-haul truckers remain on the Trans-Canada Highway instead of detouring to Dawson Road and Highway 102.

Nikos Mantis, who speaks on behalf of nearly 2,000 people who signed a petition requesting the truck ban, hopes to get warning signs that would restrict big-rig traffic.

"To us, it doesn't matter what the signs say," he said. "It just matters that they're there and that we can legally enforce a bylaw and divert those trucks."

'Won't let us put up signs'

But Councillor Trevor Giertuga said there's at least one big roadblock in the way getting provincial approval to post those warning signs in the first place.

"The Municipal Act, they're saying we can do this, but the province won't let us put up signs to enforce it," Giertuga said.

The Ministry of Transportation may not easily approve the signage, as it doesn't currently permit signs to be set up either at the Dawson Road/Highway-17 junction, or at the Thunder Bay Expressway junction.

The ban would likely take months if not a year to get on the city's books.

If a law does get enforced, council agreed exemptions will have to be made for buses, RVs, gravel trucks, float trucks and local deliveries.