Up to seven roundabouts may be coming to Morinville’s main street in the years ahead, suggests a draft functional plan.
Town residents will get their first look at the completed Highway 642 Functional Planning Study Thursday.
The study, a joint initiative of the town and the province, sets out the future shape of Hwy. 642 as it runs through Morinville (where it is known as 100 Ave.).
It’s also closely linked to the ongoing Couer de Morinville area structure plan, said planning and development director Greg Hofmann in an e-mail, as it will influence the shape and walkability of the downtown core.
The study looks at how best to manage traffic along Morinville’s main street once the town grows to about 30,000 people. (Its current population is about 9,849, Statistics Canada reports.) On the table were two solutions – traffic lights and roundabouts – affecting seven intersections.
Roundabouts are smaller, often single-lane traffic circles that are considered to be safer than regular traffic circles, Hofmann said. “They are designed to have much smaller diameters from outside curb to outside curb,” he said, which forces drivers to move through them more slowly. The exits from the circle are also closer together, making them easier to navigate.
The town found that traffic lights would be more expensive than roundabouts, Hofmann said. Traffic lights would require a centre turning lane, and the town would have to widen the whole highway in order to accommodate those lanes and still keep its on-street parking. They also require more maintenance.
Roundabouts, in comparison, would only affect the lands around six intersections, Hofmann said, and would not require road widening – everyone moves in the same direction in a roundabout, so no turning lanes are required.
The study recommends that the province put in roundabouts at the intersections of 107, 104, 102 and 100 Streets, Hofmann said, as well as at Grandin Road West, Grandin Road East and East Boundary Road. The lower cost was a big factor in this recommendation, he added.
An open house on the study will be held at the Community Cultural Centre this Thursday at 7 p.m. Visit www.morinville.ca/fps for details.
