Berford Street Reconstruction and Streetscaping

Burnside was retained by the Town of South Bruce Peninsula to provide engineering, landscape architecture, and design services to upgrade the downtown’s aging infrastructure, incorporate improvements to the downtown streetscape, and create changes that benefit active transportation in compliance with accessibility (AODA) standards.

Berford Street (Highway 6) is the main thoroughfare in the downtown core of Wiarton, Ontario, a community known as the Basecamp to the Bruce Peninsula. A 700 m segment of Berford Street – from Division Street to George Street – underwent a significant reconstruction and streetscaping project to ameliorate its municipal services infrastructure and pedestrian and vehicular safety and was known as “The Wiarton Big Dig.”

Burnside’s scope of work included the replacement of sanitary sewers and watermains, a large diameter storm sewer with an oil-grit separator, on-road parking facilities delineated with curbs, concrete sidewalks and coloured accent boulevards, unique regional specific streetscape furniture, planting beds and trees, shade-sail features, decorative dark sky compliant LED street lighting, new traffic signals, utility duct banks, and road reconstruction to accommodate the geometric and structural improvements.

The buildings along the length of the streetscape do not share similar floor elevations where the difference required in introduction of a multi-level planter and curbing design that allows for AODA accessibility compliance while creating a safe and manageable roadway corridor.  This inclusive accessible design now allows for direct access between on-street parking and the existing storefronts.

The design satisfied the Town’s commitment to provide capacity for growth and future development, improve safety within the community for pedestrians and road commuters, and enhance the quality of living within the heart of Downtown Wiarton for residents and visitors alike. This facelift refreshed the business | commercial corridor of the community to create opportunities for growth and prosperity for its residents.