ROB MURRAY: I’m speaking with Andy Esarte, Manager of Engineering with the Town of Canmore. I want to talk about that intersection that’s been undergoing a lot of work over the last number of months, the one at Benchlands and Bow Valley Trail. A lot of people have had questions around the design and how this is rolling out. I think the biggest one that I’ve heard are the traffic lights. Are they on the wrong side of the road?

ANDY ESARTE: They are on the right side of the road. This is a different design approach we have for this intersection. It’s quite a different challenge that we’re actually designing for in Canmore. We have heavy car traffic, of course, but we also have a lot of pedestrians and a lot of people biking through that intersection. It’s a known safety hazard, so we’re looking to use best practice for managing this type of situation with the design.

RM: How does it work with the lights on the side of the road that perhaps we’re not used to in North America, but I understand is a bit more common than other parts of the world?

AE: There are a lot of countries that use signals in this way, and you can find it an example or two in North America. Our road design standards are for highways. That’s caused us a lot of problems in our cities where we have not just cars but people to manage. The idea with the near-side signals is that they’ll keep vehicles out of the crosswalks. None of us like to stop at a stoplight so all of us creep forward. We’re trying to creep forward to turn right, or are creeping forward waiting for the light to turn green. We’re impatient, and that means we’re parked directly over the crosswalk. We’ve seen that as a problem for the entire winter since the new crosswalks went in.

RM: With the lights on the near side and the stop line further back, that will prevent people from creeping into the crosswalks?

AE: Exactly. You’re only able to see the signals if you’re parked in the appropriate location. That location will be in a place where you can see comfortably from a regular car so they’ll be adjusted accordingly. If you go too far, you’re not going to see the lights.

RM: You mentioned right-hand turns and I think there are a couple of questions around those with this new intersection design. I’ve heard that there will be a no right on red signal going in, is that correct?

AE: Each movement will have its own signal. We’ve added drive lanes to a couple of the legs with the intention of being able to separate out phasing. If you’re turning right you’re going to have your own right turn phase and signal. What that allows us to do is keep cars from crossing when there are pedestrians. We saw this as a problem before where there’d be a whole whack of pedestrians looking to cross, they would hold up the right turns which would then in turn hold up the through movements. It’s a much safer design because you don’t have cars turning left or right across pedestrian phases. It’s a bit more of an orderly management of the intersection.

RM: In regards to right hand turns as well, when you’re coming from the overpass going down the hill, will there be a right-hand turn lane going onto Bow Valley Trail on that side of the intersection?

AE: When you’re coming down Benchlands you have a single lane. That’ll continue single lane over the bridge. It’ll open into three lanes. There’s a current through lane and then the right hand lane is currently through and straight. That’ll be dedicated right turn, so where cars that are going through currently hold up the right turning movement, which is almost equal to the through movement, they’ll each now have their own lane with a dedicated signal for each of those movements. There won’t be through vehicles blocking right turning vehicles and vice versa.

RM: You mentioned one lane going over the overpass and that’s something that’s coming as well. That’s part of the whole Palliser redesign, is that right?

AE: That’s right. Currently on that bridge we have five traffic lanes and a small sidewalk. We’re looking to create a full multi-use path using one of those five lanes and the other four can continue to be in use, and we’re rearranging them in the way that they’re needed for proper operation over the bridge. This may mean there is some additional delay if you’re in a vehicle, and probably specifically for traffic coming off Palliser, but what it means for people who live on Palliser is that they’re going to have a safe and continuous pathway all the way from Palliser up over the bridge, down to Elevation Place, and into downtown.

RM: When you get to the intersection as a cyclist or as a pedestrian, are there going to be any enhanced features for thoser people?

AE: What we’re trying to do is create protection and separation. You have this mismatch between three tonne cars and squishy human beings so we’re trying to keep those two separated as much as possible. The main intersection itself is what’s called a protected intersection. That means there’s buffering from cars on all four corners. We’re trying to keep that principle throughout the entirety of the design so that you’re interacting with cars as little as possible. What this means is that the 60% or so of people who would bike or walk occasionally if they felt safe to do so will be encouraged. What we’re going to see over time is that any negative impact to driving today will be offset by a positive impact in the long-term. Ten years from now where we’d otherwise see growing congestion we can help manage growth by moving more trips to people walking and cycling. The only way to do that is to make people feel safe.

RM: What are the timelines here? It seems like those new traffic lights have been going up for a little while. When do you expect some of these major changes to be implemented?

AE: It’s been a slow go. We tendered this in April of last year. During the tender period the world changed. We came into a pandemic and that’s had a lot of impact on pretty much every aspect of executing work. It’s impacted the availability of labour, how labour works, it’s impacted availability of equipment and materials. We’ve actually had to go to Mexico to get fabrication of steel poles. It’s meant that there have been some delays. We’re looking at having the signals operational by May, so in the next few weeks we’re going to see some activity there and hopefully get a period of time before busy season where we can work out bugs. There will be bugs. There’s going to be a period of time where we have an adjustment. We’re just asking the community to be patient. This is a major project. It’s a challenging project in a very difficult intersection. Be patient with the crews. Reserve judgment until it’s done and it’s had some time to work. This is a long-term project. There’s short-term pain here, but this is really about the future and how we manage transportation in Canmore in the long-term

RM: Are you convinced that this is going to improve traffic flow as well as pedestrian and cycling experiences there?

AE: Change doesn’t happen, because it’s hard. We see a lot of the same practices used over and over despite the negative impacts they might have. Building cities around cars doesn’t work long term. Nobody’s solved the congestion problem by building more drive lanes. They just moved congestion elsewhere and eventually had the same problems. When they did the roundabout back in 2005 there were naysayers then. We just ask people to be patient and reserve judgment. There may be things that don’t work, but overall this is a proven approach. We’ll lose sleep until it’s up and running and we’ve worked the bugs out, but we’re certainly confident in the overall philosophy and approach. This is the way we’ve gotta go.

 

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Filed under: Canmore