The junction of Edmonton’s 124th Street and Stony Plain Road is one of that city’s busier intersections. The heavier flow is east-west along Stony Plain Road, particularly during morning and late afternoon rush hours. However, in the last couple of years the congestion has been increased by closing the parallel 102nd Avenue to east-west traffic, due famously to the City of Edmonton’s drawn out effort to replace the bridge over the Groat Road, delayed when replacement spans buckled on installation. Taking out 102nd Avenue reduced two routes in and out of central Edmonton to one.
Eastbound traffic along Stony Plain Road has long encountered an obstacle as it approaches 125th Street. Parking meters begin along the south side of the road. When vehicles are parked here, traffic is squeezed from two lanes into one until 124th Street is crossed. For years this was ameliorated by banning parking during the peak morning influx. Parking meters with peak hour bans are common in downtown Edmonton.
With the bridge closure, Edmonton proposed to shut down the meters completely along the south side of Stony Plain Road between 124th and 125th Streets. But that block contains a number of businesses, mostly what are termed storefront establishments. When the city announced its original shutdown plan the business operators protested. With a degree of success. Street parking remained available in the evening. Now, Edmonton has announced, that too is to go.
There is at present no effective warning along Stony Plain Road eastbound of the upcoming shrinkage of two lanes to one. Such warnings – including a flashing orange beacon – are common when temporarily reducing other streets to one lane, and this could readily be done to slow traffic while promoting a safer merge. Drivers could divert up to 107th Avenue or even 111th. But the city’s planners are fixated on driver convenience. Yet shop owners should not have their businesses sacrificed on the altar of faster commuting time. Drivers should share the inconvenience of the prolonged bridge installation; not get to zoom along past the empty windows of sacrificed shops.
Edmonton could also usefully install crossing lights on Stony Plain Road for the marked crosswalk at 125th Street. This is presently one of the most hazardous pedestrian crossings I know of. Drivers are supposed to stop for people crossing. Mostly they do – but far too many don’t.
Falsely elevating commuter convenience has a lesson for St. Albert. Civic planners have flip-flopped on Perron Street, first reconfiguring it to angle parking, then back to parallel – in the process changing from four driving lanes to two, then back to four. However, Perron’s heavy traffic is mostly heading through on a route of convenience where other roads are available. And whatever the danger in backing out from parallel parking, it pales to insignificance compared with the risk of emerging from the driver’s side of a parallel parked car close to hasty traffic in the inner driving lane.
Writer David Haas is a long term St. Albert resident.
