Getting into and out of St. Marys from the eastern edge of town will be a little tricky for the next four months.
Perth County is scheduled to begin a complete rebuilding of the bridge near McCully’s Hill Farm on Perth Road 9 in approximately two weeks. According to Matt Ash, the county’s director of public works, “the bridge will be completely destroyed” — thereby blocking an important artery to the Stonetown.
The Town, prompted by groups such as the Downtown Revitalization Committee and the BIA, has been in discussion with the County to place more “tasteful” signs, in the words of Coun. Bill Osborne (at the June 9 council meeting), instead of the standard orange-and-black Ministry of Transportation standard detour signs.
“We recognized that the standard detour signs aren’t going to be satisfactory due to the tourism season,” Ash notes.
As such, at the ramp where motorists can exit Highway 7 on to County Road 9, white signs will be placed, stating the bridge’s closure, as well as the alternate route of taking County Road 118 into St. Marys.
Signs will also be placed at Road 118 along Highway 7, alerting motorists to the Perth Road 9 closure.
The detour will not affect motorists heading east into St. Marys, as they can take Road 123 (Water Street) or Road 120 (James Street) into town.
Other roadwork coming
The west edge of town will have some traffic delays in August. The County will be repaving Line 139 (Queen Street West) from the edge of St. Marys to Prospect Hill.
George MacDuff, St. Marys’ director of public works, says that the town has an agreement with the county to repave approximately 250 metres of road in town as part of the County’s contract. The anticipated start date is mid-August, says MacDuff.
Closures of one lane at a time are expected during the project.
The contract hasn’t been awarded yet, but MacDuff says that Queen Street West, from the Victoria bridge to Salina Street, will also be resurfaced, likely starting the week of July 13.
The road will be pulverized, then overlaid with asphalt to improve the surface from its current condition.
New tourism signs on the way
Speaking of signs, the town has also been discussing the relocation of its “Take the Scenic Route” signs on Highway 7. The signs’ current locations, the town has long argued, are misleading in that they suggest that the next exits — Perth Line 20 in the east, and Blanshard Road 127 in the west — are the appropriate exits to St. Marys.
CAO Rob Brindley met with representatives from Tourism Directional Signing (TODS) last week, the company which creates and places the signs, as the five-year contract on the signs was coming to an end.
He told the Journal Argus that “I think the meeting went really well,” in that the current signs will be removed in favour of new signage, which will be placed closer to St. Marys.
The town is still deciding exactly what kind of sign to erect: it can go with a “tourism cluster,” the blue and white signs which features individual attractions  (which already exist for the Baseball Hall of Fame and McCully’s on Highway 7), or opt for a rural downtown sign, which promotes the town in general.
Either way, Brindley says, “we’ll have different signs in a better spot,” and likely within two months of the town’s decision on which type of sign to use.
While exact costs haven’t been determined yet, Brindley says that either option is less than what’s currently there.
“The new signs will save us money and give the town a higher profile,” he notes.
Brindley was also able to obtain an explanation as to why the old signs (which will stay up until the new signs arrive) were placed so far away from St. Marys originally.
He says that typically, these types of signs designate a larger area (such as St. Jacobs), and the Ministry of Transportation requires them to be a certain distance away from the  attraction, regardless of the attraction’s size.