The city moved a step closer to putting in a roundabout at the Charlottetown Airport.
Council voted 7-3 in favour of paying CBCL Ltd. $25,000 to start redesigning the Brackley Point Road-Sherwood Road intersection.
Couns. Jason Coady, Mitchell Tweel and Danny Redmond voted against the resolution.
Just to be clear, that redesign will happen on paper. Work isn't likely to start on the project until the federal government pumps more infrastructure money to the provinces in 2014.
Coun. Terry Bernard, chair of public works, said the airport roundabout is the city's No. 2 priority. The so-called Vogue Optical intersection remains at the top of the list. That project is in the final design phase.
The city had engineers look at whether a roundabout would be possible at the airport.
"They did a preliminary design that showed us a roundabout would fit there so now we're going to design so we'll be shovel-ready when funding comes down the pipe,'' Bernard said.
Coady tried defer spending the $25,000, which was seconded by Tweel and Redmond, until the 2013 budget process is completed, but that attempt was quashed by a 7-3 vote. Coady, Tweel and Redmond then opposed the original resolution.
Bernard said it will take CBCL the winter to complete the design work.
The two roundabouts - at the airport and at Vogue Optical - will be cost-shared by the province, federal government and the city, with each paying a third of the cost.
The Vogue Optical roundabout is pegged at $2.5 million while the one at the airport is expected to cost $1.5 million.
The city won't know how it moves forward in either case until the feds announce how much money each province is getting. In theory, both projects could begin in 2014.
"It depends on the funding arrangements . . . but it is a possibility,'' Bernard said.
There was a request for proposals.