Tecumseh Road Community Improvement Plan Area: Traffic Operational Review

For Immediate Release

Friday, November 21, 2025

Tecumseh Road Community Improvement Plan Area:
Traffic Operational Review

Tecumseh, ON- Throughout the late summer and fall of 2025, the Town has experienced an increased traffic volume on Tecumseh Road as a result of construction on major east-west corridors across the Town and Region.  Tecumseh Road serves local mainstreet businesses and is also a primary flow-through for commuter traffic.  Increased traffic to the point of congestion understandably affects Tecumseh businesses and citizens on local roads.

Construction projects that have impacted flow of traffic on Tecumseh Road include:

“We acknowledge there has been a lot of activity throughout this construction season and traffic relief is anticipated as construction projects are completed or temporarily closed down for the winter months” says the Town’s Engineer Phil Bartnik.  “Town Administration is committed to ongoing monitoring of the traffic conditions along Tecumseh Road and reviewing traffic signal timing with the County of Essex. We work with other jurisdictions to mitigate traffic disruptions as much as we can and provide notifications to residents in a timely manner.”

On Tuesday November 25th, Town Council will receive a report from the Director of Public Works and Engineering Services regarding a traffic operational review for the Tecumseh Road Community Improvement Plan Area.  This includes noting 2025 Regional Road Infrastructure Construction Projects and anticipated investments over the next 3 years totalling more than $300M, with approximately $91M in Federal and Provincial funding grants. The report also identifies ongoing regional construction projects that have an impact on Tecumseh Road traffic, which culminated during a two-week period of October 27 and November 3, 2025, and peaked on Thursday November 6, 2025. These projects include:

During discussions regarding a Notice of Motion that was brought to Council on November 10th, Administration committed to review traffic signal timing of the Tecumseh Road / Lesperance Road intersection with the Town’s traffic engineering consultant.  A thorough operational review of all the Town’s traffic signals was completed in 2023, which resulted in the optimization of the traffic signals at that time. Highlights of the current traffic signal timing provided in the report include:

·       The Tecumseh Road corridor utilizes a common 105-second traffic signal cycle. An increase to this cycle is not recommended as it could create traffic inefficiencies on Lesperance Road and may result in other safety concerns associated with VIA Rail and County Road 22.

·        Lesperance Road at Tecumseh Road utilizes the minimum pedestrian timing (29 seconds) recommended by the Provincial Traffic Signals Manual. Reducing this cycle time introduces safety risks for pedestrians and an increase in the Town’s liability if the minimum amount of time to safely cross the roadway is not provided.

·        The traffic signal controller only services Lesperance Road for as long as a demand (or queue) is detected, up to the maximum of 29 seconds. When a traffic queue is not detected, such as traffic loops in the road and/or pedestrian push buttons, the controller reassigns and gives that time back to Tecumseh Road flow-through traffic.

In addition to reviewing traffic signal timing with the engineering consultant, Public Works staff conducted live traffic monitoring along Tecumseh Road between Banwell Road and Manning Road (eastbound and westbound) during peak hours (3:00pm to 6:30pm) on the weeks of November 10 and 17, 2025 to observe the level of traffic queuing and to record travel times.  The following key takeaways were observed and noted:

In reviewing travel time projections on Google Maps for the Tecumseh Road corridor between Banwell and Manning, ranges were between 5 to 6-minutes for eastbound and westbound travel during non-peak hours (10:00am to 3:00pm). This suggests that the longest travel time observed during live monitoring of Tecumseh Road Traffic (9 mins eastbound), was approximately 4 minutes longer than what can be expected for non-peak hours.

The full Tecumseh Road Community Improvement Plan Area: Traffic Operational Review Report and attachments showing the observations of live monitoring graphically can be found here

Background Information

·         At the Regular Council Meeting held on July 13, 2021, Council approved Report PWES2021-30 Tecumseh Road On-Street Parking (Shawnee Road to Bedell Street), which summarized the findings and recommendations provided through the 2016 and 2020 traffic studies completed by Dillon Consulting Limited (Dillon). On-Street parking was recommended to counter the loss of 26 off-street parking spaces within Parking Lot 2 due to declining the renewal of the parking lot lease agreement with the private property owner.

·         On-Street Parking on Tecumseh Road was implemented in 2022, adding 64 spaces at a cost of $30,000. This was in keeping with the overall Tecumseh Road Main Street revitalization project to work towards a more walkable and inviting downtown corridor and to support the parking needs of businesses in this area. 

·         Tecumseh Road goes from a 2-lane road to a 1-lane road at Shawnee with the on-street parking. Removal of the on-street parking shifts the pinch point (1-lane of traffic) to the Lesperance Intersection and easterly until east of Lacasse. 

·        The Tecumseh/Lesperance intersection is a three-lane cross-section for Eastbound traffic (LT, Thru, RT). This intersection has historically been the pinch point on Tecumseh Road with 1 eastbound thru lane. Tecumseh Road between Lesperance Road and Lacasse Blvd is also 1 eastbound thru lane. The implementation of on-street parking has shifted the pinch point westerly to the Tecumseh/Shawnee intersection. 

·        As part of the Notice of Motion that was brought before Council on November 10 to temporarily eliminate on-street parking along the south side portion of Tecumseh Road or implement a daily no parking time restrictions on either or both sides of Tecumseh Road, Town Administration provided reference information regarding on-street parking and traffic congestion including:

o   The Town Engineer advised that the removal of on-street parking on Tecumseh Road would NOT facilitate the desired result of moving traffic through Lesperance any quicker due to the existing three-lane cross section of the road (i.e. the pinch point).

o   The Town Engineer also advised that the implementation of time restricted parking throughout the day/evening or converting the parking area to a thru lane would not result in faster movement of traffic through this corridor. This is due to the pinch point at Lesperance. 

o   An estimated cost for the removal of on-street parking would be approx. $50,000 to remove the pavement markings and re-establish two eastbound through lanes. However, this would not facilitate faster movement of traffic through this corridor due to the pinch point at Lesperance. 

o   The removal of the parking spaces would be contrary to the Council-approved Tecumseh Road Main Street revitalization project.

·       After discussion and consideration by members of Council, the Notice of Motion was defeated in favour of a commitment by Administration to monitor the level of traffic within the Tecumseh Road corridor and collaborate with the County of Essex to investigate any improvements on traffic signal timing calibrations at the various intersections along Tecumseh Road.

-30-