What follows ran in today’s Edmonton Examiner as my monthly column. It follows up from this previous post.
I heard loud and clear that last week was challenging for many motorists encountering LRT on the south side, especially those who use 51 Avenue.
The transportation department remains focused on optimizing the performance of all intersections along 111 Street.
However, we all need to accept that these intersections will not operate like they did before the LRT opened.
The wait for left turns and east/west-bound traffic will be longer all up and down 111 Street. This was not a traffic engineering error.
The disruptions we saw at 51 Avenue last week were clearly the result of an error. Fortunately, last week’s traffic was moving better after a significant change to the signal timing.
I personally visited 51 Avenue several times during the first part of the week to see the problems for myself and understand the transportation department’s approach to the problem.
On the bright side, travelling north/south will be faster since that is the dominant flow of traffic and trains. In fact, a number of constituents have told me their commute by car up 111 Street is faster than before the train opened.
One way to think about this is that opening LRT is like building a six-lane freeway in terms of its capacity to move people, so when you’re crossing 111 Street in a sense it’s like crossing the equivalent of a 10-12 lane road.
Many have contacted me to ask why the major intersections were not tunneled under or bridged over, and the decision was made during the planning phase based on computer modeling of each intersection. Each grade separation costs millions to implement, and cause more serious disruption so they are used very sparingly.
Other citizens have asked whether the experience at these intersections will change the city’s intentions to run the new southeast-to-west line on the surface, including through downtown.
This is a fair question that we will have to explore. The initial plans involve limiting many of the left turns, which wasn’t done on the South LRT.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions at 780-496- 8132 or at don.iveson@edmonton.ca.
