I fully concur with the statements made by reader Tony Gull ("City should follow survey results on speed limit review," Feb. 17 Gazette). The steps taken by St. Albert to realize their “Vision Zero” are often ridiculous and create more problems than they solve. Let's face the facts: the only way one can guarantee no traffic fatalities, the goal of Vision Zero, is to ban all traffic in St. Albert – a very impractical solution. However, with changes made in traffic management over the past several years it appears that the city is going out of its way to make driving an extremely unpleasant experience.
They began with the Trail and their “protected left turn signals”, which may be fine in some places and during some peak hours, but the poor timing and lack of synchronization of these signals have driven drivers off the Trail as a main artery and onto side streets, which leads to “traffic calming” devices on the side streets, further impeding traffic flow, because of the increase in traffic coming off the congested main roads.
Then there are the intersections where through traffic is forced to wait behind left turning traffic, a source of needless congestion if there ever was one.
There really appears to be little forethought into the future consequences of these actions, nor do some of them make any sense whatsoever. A case in point is this past summer when the city changed the southbound lanes on Dawson Road from the ability to make a left turn onto McKenney from both lanes, to designating the right lane as right turn only, forcing all left turning traffic into one lane. Some might think this is a good move until one realizes that by the city’s own data collected over three days in August 2020, two thirds of the traffic approaching that intersection make a left turn, and only 1/3 turn right. So, in effect, the city has created a situation at that corner where 1/3 of the traffic has an advantage and 2/3 are put at a disadvantage.
Maybe the city, by making such ridiculous changes, is trying to force us into using public transportation, which could be a good thing in terms of pollution and safe commuting – however, since the two bus stops that are walkable from my home have been designated as “future bus stop” for the past 46 years, I am not expecting any improvements in this system soon.
D. Forster, St. Albert
