Phase II of the St. Johns Truck Strategy implements 3 of the 8 sub-projects identified in the St. Johns Truck Strategy adopted by City Council in 2001.

The St. Johns Truck Strategy is a package of eight sub-projects that collectively are designed with the primary purpose of eliminating or reducing the impacts of freight traffic within the St Johns neighborhood. The main elements of the Strategy are four improvement projects to the designated freight route around the neighborhood to encourage its use, and four traffic calming/ safety improvement projects to discourage freight use of the residential streets as cut-through routes, particularly N St. Louis / Fessenden Street.

The three sub-projects for Phase II include: Traffic Calming / Safety areas 1, 2 and 3. Traffic Calming/ Safety areas 1 and 2 focus on traffic calming N St Louis-Fessenden St, while area 3 addresses multi-modal issues associated with the N Lombard freight route between N St Louis and N Bruce.

Plan development to refine the general design concepts for this group of sub-projects and Truck Street Improvement Area No. 3, which includes improvements to the N Portland Road / Columbia Way intersection that was completed in 2013, after a 16-month public involvement process. The final recommendations of that process can be seen here.

Funding for the plan development of Phase II came from a federal grant received in 2010. The identification of specific design recommendations allowed the City to turn around and apply for and receive another federal grant, in the amount of $3.3 million, for final design engineering and construction of sub-projects: Traffic Calming / Safety areas 1, 2 and 3.

Design and construction of Truck Street Improvement Area No. 3 will be funded through a future final phase of the project with System Development Charge (SDC) funds. Sub-project Truck Street Improvement No. 4, which implements freight route safety improvements on N Burgard, are currently funded and are anticipated to be constructed in the future.  Phase I of implementation was completed in 2012, which included Truck Street Improvement Areas 1 and 2, which upgraded the existing signal system between the St Johns Bridge and N Lombard, and to improve the turning radius for trucks at three corners to improve mobility and use of the designated freight route.