Traffic lights coming to intersection of Kennedy Road and Charleston Sideroad

Lights welcomed by Caledon Central Public School community

By ZACHARY ROMAN

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A busy crossroads in Caledon Village will soon be safer.

On December 18, Ward 1 Councillor Lynn Kiernan and Caledon Central Public School principal Lesley Kennedy announced that traffic lights will be coming to the intersection of Kennedy Road and Charleston Sideroad.

Work will begin to install the traffic lights this month, said Kiernan. 

The intersection of Kennedy and Charleston is right beside Caledon Central Public School, and each day many school buses use it. It gets especially backed up at the end of the school day when school buses all leave at the same time.

“At the end of the day, the buses leave en masse — there's 16 to 17 buses — and they can't get out of Charleston Sideroad,” said Kiernan. “It's a very dangerous road… there's children that live a few blocks away and they can't walk to school.”

There is a subdivision north of Charleston Sideroad and at present students living there cannot walk to school safely. When the traffic lights are complete, if their parents are comfortable with it, children will be able to walk to school, said Kiernan.

Kiernan said she received a letter from Kennedy a little over two years ago expressing concern with problems at the intersection. Thanks to the letter, Kiernan went to the school to see the problem firsthand.

She began to advocate for traffic lights at the intersection, and at first only bollards were put up in the area.

“No one cared… every week they were getting knocked over and destroyed by the trucks,” said Kiernan. “I kept pushing.”

Eventually, in this term of Council, a traffic study in the area was redone, said Kiernan. Thanks to this, traffic lights were recommended to be put in at the intersection of Kennedy Road and Charleston Sideroad.

“Nothing happens in a vacuum. This is the principal reaching out to me, the community reaching out to me,” said Kiernan, thanking all who were involved in bringing traffic lights to the intersection.