Charlottetown hopes to begin work on reimagined University Avenue in spring

Starting early next year, P.E.I.'s busiest street could have a new look.

About 20,000 vehicles drive up and down University Avenue in Charlottetown every day. The city's plans to renovate it, first unveiled at a public meeting in January, now have a more solid timeline.

"We're hoping right now that we will be ready to tender later this year with hopes of breaking ground next spring. That's what we're aiming for," said city public works manager Scott Adams.

The first phase of the project will begin at Belvedere Avenue and go to Nassau Street. The city hopes to eventually complete the road revamp down to Euston Street. 

The city is looking to balance a number of competing needs in what it has called a bold re-imagining of the street: improving traffic flow, making sidewalks safer for pedestrians, and adding a multi-use pathway for cyclists.

Street changes will include a median from Nassau to Belvedere that will prevent left-hand turns into shopping areas, improving northward traffic flow. For pedestrians, the sidewalk on the east side will be widened and set back further from the street. There will be new signals at the corner of Pond Street. Trees and other greenery will be added.

The multi-use path will go on the east side of the street.

There are still details of the plan being worked out.

The city would like to bury power and communication lines on the street, and is currently working with utilities to determine how that might be done.

It's a complicated matter, said Adams, given the large commercial users all along University Avenue. But buried lines are more attractive and bring other benefits.

"It gives us more right of way, avoids power lines coming down on the road and that during major windstorms as we saw during Fiona," he said.

"Those power poles do take up valuable space within the right of way and we're really narrow in certain areas, so we need every inch we can get to make sure our vision for this street comes to fruition."

When the city originally drew up the plans in March of 2021 the cost was estimated at almost $15 million. Given inflation, at the public meeting in January the estimate had risen to between $16 and $17 million.

The city has not taken an updated look at the cost since then.