Lament for a lost leafy lane

Mark Richardson

At last, I can tell you about one of my favourite roads.

It's the Lower Base Line that straddles Milton and Oakville, winding up and down, crossing Sixteen Mile Creek twice in just a few kilometres on single-lane wooden bailey bridges.

When I have a little extra time to commute downtown into work from my home in Milton, I'll take the Lower Base Line. The leafy trees overhang the road and the pavement twists back and forth, keeping speeds well within the posted 50 km/h limit.

If the weather is warm and sunny and I'm riding my motorcycle, the road's gentle seduction sets me up for the day. At the end of a weekday shift, I'll come home and leave the city's cares behind with the first narrow bridge crossing.

According to a 2001 traffic count, about 3,000 vehicles crossed the eastern Barnstable Bridge each day, and just 750 crossed the western Henderson Park Bridge. The higher count for the Barnstable Bridge is because it's a more direct route for Milton residents into Oakville.

Those figures will have jumped in recent years, of course – Milton is the most rapidly growing community in Canada. A haze of construction dust hangs over the town these days, filming the windows and keeping the car washes busy.

But still, the Lower Base Line, with its signature bridges and their seven-tonne weight limit, has been a respite from the encroachment of the suburbs.

Until a few years ago, there was a third single-lane wooden bridge that crossed the creek on the Fourth Line, but it became too rickety and is now closed to traffic. The three of them made a loop that formed part of my Sunday afternoon rides.

And now, as of Wednesday, the road that leads over the Barnstable Bridge is closed until the end of November. It's being replaced with a better road, straighter and wider. To comply with municipal requirements, the bridge will have two lanes and no weight limit.

That's progress.

An enviromental study in 2004 noted that "the rural location, two crossings of the Sixteen Mile Creek and Valley, one-lane bridges, roadside trees and the nature of the horizontal and vertical alignment of the roadway, all result in (the road) having a rural character and being scenic and picturesque."

Something had to be done, though. To cross the creek each time, the road turned sharply around a blind corner (that's the "horizontal alignment") and dipped steeply down to the water (yup, the "vertical alignment") at grades in excess of the recommended 15 per cent limit.

I know it could be a challenge. I once saw a guy drop his Harley-Davidson trying to brake for the turn on the bridge's slippery wood.

Twice in the last decade, the road was closed when the soil of the cutting slipped and blocked the way. Now there's a danger that the road itself, east of the Barnstable Bridge, will become unstable and slip into the creek. That's why it's being rerouted.

The bridge will be replaced with a modern concrete structure. It's about time. It's rusting and wearing out.

As Paul Cripps, Milton's director of engineering services, explains: "It's an issue of safety. If I lived in that area and a fire truck couldn't get to me without looping around several times, I think that would be more important" than the character of the old bridge.

I'm sure he's right. The road needs to be fixed and the growing town needs to accept that it's no longer quaint and rural but needs better feeder roads into the city.

There's no fixed date for the replacement of the Henderson Park Bridge, which needs an agreement from both Milton and Oakville, but it's slated for replacement in the next seven years at the very latest.

I'll miss that relaxing commute. It's too bad that driving just became a little less fun and a little more boring.

And let's hope the safety engineers never visit Belfountain and discover the Forks of the Credit Road.

Mark Richardson is the editor of Wheels. mrichardson@thestar.ca

More videos from Wheels.ca and our partners