Adam Prudhomme
Beaver Staff
A pair of intersections — County Rd. 2/Deseronto Road and Bridge Street/Centre Street- were the major topics of discussion at Greater Napanee council last Tuesday.
Chris Wagar, manager of roads, bridges for Lennox and Addington County, and Vanessa Skelton of GHD Pty LTD engineering were on hand to address concerns around those intersections-the first regarding safety, the other a lack of a left turn phase.
On the issues around County Rd. 2 and Deseronto Road, which has garnered a reputation as a high collision intersection, Wagar says they hope to have the funding to turn the two-way stop into a roundabout in place by January.
“We have received a lot of concern from council, staff and residents about that intersection,” said Wagar. “Currently we’ve applied with Tyendinaga Township with a joint application. We’re optimistic that they will receive funding for the installation of a roundabout at that location.”
In the meantime he says staff has taken steps to try and make it more clear that cars travelling north and south have to come to a complete stop and yield to traffic travelling east and west on County Rd. 2.
“We’ve reduced the signage, we’ve minimized the clutter (around that intersection),” said Wagar. “We’ve removed the overhead flashing beacon, as that may have given the impression that it was an all-way stop. And we’ve installed flashing beacons on the stop signs in an attempt to reduce incidents until we hear about funding, which will happen in late January 2019.”
As for Bridge and Centre, council heard that there are no plans to install a left-turn lane phase to the existing traffic lights. That has been a common request among motorists, who have complained they are often unable to turn from Centre on Bridge due to heavy traffic heading north and south.
“Concerns were raised by town council in regards to safety issues and delay concerns,” said Skelton. “The traffic signals are timed for the average day and normal traffic volumes and traffic population. Currently there is construction traffic passing through the intersection because of construction on County Rd. 2 and Dundas Street and the detours that are in place because of that construction.”
Those roads also act as EDR routes for Hwy 401, which can lead to further congestion. According to a county traffic study, an ‘average’ day would consist of 18,000 vehicles going north-south on Centre Street compared to 8,000 on Bridge Street. Skelton says those numbers are expected to decrease now that Dundas Street is completely re-opened to vehicular traffic.
“Once construction is completed it’s expected the flow patterns will return to normal with most of the traffic being on Centre Street and a reduced traffic flow on Bridge Street,” she said. “Once construction is completed, it’s expected the left turn lanes on Bridge Street will have little delay.”
She also added that downtown merchants had expressed concerns that a left turn phase, which the lights did have prior to downtown construction, impeded the traffic flow on Centre Street.
“It’s frustrating for drivers to stop at one traffic light, drive a few 100 metres and then stop again,” said Skelton. “We’ve been working for years to improve the north-south traffic flow, coordinating the signals. That was part of the intersection reconstruction project at Bridge and Centre as well as now the reconstruction of Dundas and Centre so that these two intersections work in conjunction to facilitate the traffic flow in the north-south direction.”
“The current timing plan provides the least amount of delays to the overall majority of traffic,” she added. “Addition of the left turn phase would mean there would be more wait time for the other direction.”
Installing a temporary turn phase during the construction process would have cost the County an additional $20,000, said Skelton.
Deputy mayor Marg Isbester says this issue has been one mentioned to her many times while on the current council as well as while campaigning for the upcoming election. That’s why she put forward the motion to get the left turn phase put back into those set of lights.
“It’s not going to make people happy,” Isbester said of Tuesday’s presentation. “I think we’re still going to get complaints and the next council’s going to have to look at this when all of the construction is done.”
Councillor Roger Cole agreed.
“I hope once everything is in place, that the public, without a lot of difficulty, has the opportunity for input,” said Cole. “Because it’s fine to have people out there counting the cars, but the people that actually drive the road should have input for what’s there.”
Council notes: an ‘aggressive’ recruiting process was cited as the reason for attracting 21 new applicants for the Greater Napanee Emergency Services’ volunteer fire department. GNES chief Rob Serson told council he was pleased with that number.
-Greater Napanee council put out the call to any residents interested in helping with the installation of Big Bright Lights, which is currently ongoing. Anyone interested in assisting staff with the process is asked to contact Bethany Chadwick at 613-354-3351 ext. 2015.