St. Albert is testing out a new kind of crosswalk, known as pedestrian scramble or a criss cross intersection in the downtown area.
The new pedestrian crossing was installed at Perron Street and St. Anne Street last week and it is the first of its kind in the city.
“The pedestrian movement is actually separated completely from vehicle movement. We do that by stopping traffic in all four directions,” Dean Schick, transportation manager at the city of St. Albert said.
When pedestrians are crossing the street, they can cross in any direction, including diagonally. While cars are travelling through the intersection all pedestrian traffic is halted. One big change for drivers is that they will be not be able to make a right turn on a red light.
“That time frame when the pedestrian has that movement it’s all reds and we want the pedestrian to be able to travel freely without conflict,” Schick said.
Schick said that the reason this intersection was installed was the increase of near-miss pedestrian and car collisions in the area and the new intersection was installed to prevent any serious collisions in the area.
One concern for drivers and pedestrians is the delay the new system will cause said Schick.
“When a pedestrian is on site it essentially does equate to a delay. It is another road user of the intersection that needs to be accommodated and have their time,” Schick said.
Schick said that the delay will depend on the time of day and when you show up in the traffic cycle but pedestrians and vehicles could be waiting for up to 90 seconds to cross.
Schick said that the city is trying to mitigate the delay by making the pedestrian crossing activated by a walk button.
The city has also installed video detection for vehicles at the intersection so the lights activate to accommodate drivers who are in the intersection rather than looping through the entire traffic light cycle.
The pedestrian crossing was installed in time for festival season, and Schick said that it was important to have it operational before then because many near miss incidents happened when St. Anne Street was closed.
The city of Edmonton and Calgary each have two pedestrian scramble crosswalks and St. Albert will be trying the new crosswalk during the summer.
The city wants to collect feedback on the intersection and any feedback can be given in an online survey on the city website. Search “pedestrian scramble” on the City of St. Albert website to find the survey before Sept. 30.
