Prince Edward County staff and the Trails Improvement Ad-Hoc Committee are heading back to the drawing board when it comes to four proposed launch sites.
Councillors sent half of the proposed launch sites for the Millennium Trail back for further consideration during their Committee of the Whole meeting on Thursday afternoon.
The proposed launch sites, or rest areas, are municipally-owned properties on Salem Road, Station Road, Stanley Street and Lake Street, adjacent to the Millennium Trail.
The proposed launch sites would be similar to those in Wellington and include a gravel parking area, porta-potty style bathroom, covered kiosk with trail information and benches, bicycle repair stand, bicycle rack, garbage bin and a native plant garden.
Councillors and residents had a number of concerns about two sites specifically.
Bloomfield resident Hilary Fennell addressed council asking for their reconsideration.
Councillor Phil St-Jean, a resident of Stanley Street echoed Fennell’s concerns.
Project Manager Garrett Osborne said they were looking at four launch points distributed evenly along the tail, which is why those four locations were selected.
Patrick Maloney spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting and noted the four rest sites were not selected by the public, but in fact by County staff.
Osborne told councillors that staff and the committee did look at alternate sites and determined the Stanley Street site was the better choice as it would limit pedestrian traffic trying to cross Stanley Street.
The Lake Street location was also sent back to staff for further reconsideration because of parking issues.
Barry Davidson created the proposed drawings of the launch sites, along with help from County staff.
CAO Marcia Wallace recommended councillors provided staff with as much detail as possible as to what changes they were looking for specifically so staff could come back with a report more to their liking.
Councillor Janice Maynard also wanted costs to the municipality kept to a minimum.
Council did approve the Committee to conduct additional fundraising if required to fund the capital costs of the launch points and the dissolution of the Committee once their work was completed or November 1.
A report will come back to staff at a later date.
