The Mount Edward Road-Allen Street intersection facelift is moving closer to reality and motorists could see a roundabout there this year.
Last year, city council approved $3 million under the Building in Canada federal infrastructure program, so the project will be cost-shared by the three levels of government, if and when it's approved.
The City of Charlottetown just acquired all the necessary land in order to proceed with the project. Now it waits to see what happens with the federal government's budget next Tuesday where Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is expected to announced a massive infrastructure stimulus package that will create jobs and projects this year. It is believed that stimulus package will include a facelift for Mount Edward Road and Allen Street.
The city needed a small piece of land from the federal government on the Experimental Farm property and from Island Chev Olds to expand the intersection. It now has both.
Depending on what's in the stimulus package, work could begin this spring. Now the question is, what kind of work will it be?
The city has its engineers looking at a possible roundabout, which functions without signal lights.
"Right now we're investigating the possibility of a roundabout (as long as it) eases traffic flow better than a signalized intersection would,'' said Coun. Terry Bernard, chair of public works and property.
A roundabout would be the cheaper option, he said, but it doesn't make sense to go that route if traffic from signalized intersections in the immediate area cause traffic to back up into the roundabout.
To put it in perspective, the city spent $220,000 to install traffic lights at Kensington Road and Woodward Drive.
The city has had its eye on the Allen and Mount Edward intersection for years. It has become quite the traffic headache for motorists. With no dedicated left-turning lane in three of the four feeders into the intersection, traffic tends to get extremely congested.
Frustrated motorists refuse to wait and end up using one of four side streets to access St. Peter's Road - Harley, Gower, Confederation and Palmer's Lane.
If the city chooses to go with a signalized intersection, the curb will have to be brought in about 9,100 square feet at Island Chev Olds and approximately 140 square feet at Tim Hortons.
Bernard said the right-turning merge lane on Allen Street would begin at Reliable Motors and push into the Island Chev Olds property.
Charlottetown investigates roundabout for Mount Edward-Allen Street facelift
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Comments
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- wondering about it
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:41:10
Where they need a round about is at that intersection in Sherwood across from Leons
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- Please be kidding
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:41:06
PEI is without a doubt blessed with some of the worst drivers in Canada. Turn signals are seldom/ never used, talking on cell phone when driving, pulling out in front of oncoming traffic seems to be the norm, and driving 10 kilometres an hour below the speed limit is common, and you expect these people to grasp on to the workings of a roundabout. Give me front row tickets for that show, could be quite an entertaining spectacle.
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- Jack
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:35:00
Very well put, typical complainers .... having driven in europe, espepecially France, they have roundabouts EVERYWHERE, and they are all small like the one near Summerside... they are small for a reason like you have pointed out already... France has thousands of roundabouts, and people from PEI complain about one of the only ones they have. In my opinion, there should only be roundabouts and no traffic lights, just like most of Europe, they have their road safety down MUCH better than we do.
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- Den
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:31:49
How about just widening that so called extra lane in front of Tim's and putting a delayed signal going onto Allen, wouldn't that be a slight improvement?
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- No Roundabouts
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:31:25
Here's a novel idea! Insead of spending mils on roundabouts why not assess the installed Signalizing mentioned above presently sleeping or mis-operating!
The traffic lights in Ch'town have time settings that are the longest in Canada! The set times between red and green lights are ridiculous! Ever try getting a green light at the Beach Grove and North River Rd Lights? And if one actually comes on step oner as it's ZIPPPPP three cars at best get through and we're back to Square one!
There's maybe three turn arrows in the whole city and of course unless you've memorized where they are, when your sitting at the traffic lights you don't know if your getting one or not till the green goes red again! And the time span on those are the same Zippppp gone.
Now if there's cars turning on arrows from both sides of the lights, back up, as you got about as much chance on that arrow as you have at winning the 6/49, unless of course your from Ontario or away! -
- the problem is tim's
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:29:32
the problem with the intersection of Allen and Mt Edward is Tim Horton's. Other than those times when people are getting their coffee fix, it's one of the easier intersections in town. Try crossing University at Fitzroy.
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- David
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:21:00
I was going to comment on PEI drivers but I see my fellow Islanders already have.
Nobody knows how to drive, Police included. Lack of driving skills shows in the way roads are designed and constructed since the builders can't drive either.
I saw a car on Kensington Road turn left onto the bypass by going the *wrong way* up the merge lane and then cross four lanes of traffic.
The PEI government has to start cracking down on bad drivers and start taking licenses away, make driver testing mandatory every couple of years.
Police have to start setting an example and give tickets for traffic offenses; crossing solid lines, no signal lights *before* turning or *before* merging, using the shoulder as a right turn lane, using the emergency lane (cross hatched yellow lines) as a lane: e.g. at the end of St. Peter's Road near the 1911 jail, racing up the right lane University Avenue or the right lane of the bypass to get by other cars.
There's absolutely NO CONTROL over traffic on PEI, zero is done other than the obvious like drunk driving or extremely reckless driving right in front of a police officer.
Fix the problem of bad drivers first before putting in a 'Round About'. -
- eastern pei
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:20:26
how can they expect PEI drivers to know how to use roundabouts when they cant even figure out how to use 2 lanes properly.
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- someonewhoknows
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:19:08
I have to echo the comments of previous contributors. PEI has the worst drivers per capita of anywhere in Canada.
I have driven in Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Moncton and PEI wins hands down.
They have no idea what a Stop sign means. They have no conception of what speed limits mean. They have no idea what solid lines mean. Safe following distance is an idea that is completely foreign to their physche.
And driving at a safe speed for highway conditions is not permitted. I won't even touch on cellphone usage.
The RCMP are conspiculously absent. Zero enforcement of traffic laws allows this lunacy to continue.
Another roundabout won't make things any better or any worse.
Commonsense and respect for others that use our roads might. -
- PA
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:15:07
If the City's Fix for Mount Edward Rd and Allen St. is in anyway similar to the Fix they employed at the Peter Pan intersection, save our tax payers dollars please!
The prior fix served only to worsen and complicate the initial situation while increasing taxes. I'm wondering why the alternative plan presented for the Peter Pan Intersection proving to be much more efficient, wasn't given more consideration or review? -
- lol
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:14:20
Half the bad drivers on PEI are probably those of you commenting/reading on this blog. You know who you are... I myself am proud to be horrible driver.
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- MC
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:05:27
It's not only the cheaper initially for the city (and thus, for us residents), but the cheaper option ongoing as well.
I'm looking forward to more of these, how about at the entrance to UPEI off Belvedere (which would also benefit the market)? -
- hmm
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:04:53
What we need is a single transportation authority across PEI responsible for design-build-operate.
That would be the Dept. of Transportation and Public Works.
Take away transportation planning duties from the City of Charlottetown, which places this file on the desk of the police chief. Take away transportation infrastructure duties from the City of Charlottetown, which places this file on the desk of its public works dept.
Put it in the hands of a dedicated team of engineers who have responsibility for eveyr inch of roads, sidewalks, curbs, storm sewers, culverts and road signs on this blessed island.
Have them design everything on a national standard, not the half-a$$ed PEI standard, and then have each summer's work contracted as a single tender to a single company that is responsible for implementing it. These same engineers would have the inspection authority to audit the work being done and institute penalties if the work is not done to design.
The way Charlottetown currently does all of this is the police chief conducts a study (either formal or informal) of a traffic problem, then lets public works know. Public Works (which does not have its own engineers do any design work in-house) then contracts the design and project supervision work out to an engineering company, which comes in and designs a solution that gets the max. benefit to the contracted company - ie. they spend a minimal amount of time designing it, then contract a construction company to build it cheaply, while raking in the max. amount of profit.
Having city politicians (and residents) with such limited vision doesn't help either.
Again, why do we have municipal governments on this tiny island province? -
- Trish
- - June 21st, 2010 at 20:01:22
No more roundabouts till City finds contractor that knows how to build one! (The First one didn't change a thing) City should donate that enormous amount of dollars to Maritime Electric on behalf of citizens so we can afford to have our lights and heat on! That would be helping their citizens! Stop spending our money on useless tools!
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- typical complainers
- - June 21st, 2010 at 19:58:26
To all those complaining about the traffic circle at Travellers Rest...
If you had half a brain cell, you would know that that design (an international standard by the way) is a MODERN ROUNDABOUT.
A modern roundabout is intentionally designed to be small, as opposed to those gargantuous 1960s era 10 acre roundabouts in Port Elgin, Pictou and Dieppe/Moncton...
By designing it tight, it SLOWS TRAFFIC DOWN and forces you to yield and then merge.
By your very comments, you illustrate the stupidity that pervades this island and its drivers. Go try driving in a big city in Europe or Asia for once.
Typical Islanders, whining about change. Need some cheese with that??????? -
- JERRY
- - June 21st, 2010 at 19:56:41
Roundabouts are functional in many situations. The one recently built on the TCH/#2 Hwy near Summerside is poor engineering and it's just not big enough or wide enough. SO IF ONE IS BUILT at Mt. Edward & Allen spend the money on engineering and do it right. Many of our intersections are poorly constructed.... built on the cheap
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- Taxpayer
- - June 21st, 2010 at 19:55:08
For Heavens sake please go off Island for the engineering. Just look at the mess our locals make of every intersection they're involved in and I mean every one of them. Please please please go off island.
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- Ward 4
- - June 21st, 2010 at 19:52:44
This would be totally uncalled for. There are many more pressing issues in Ward 4 and there are many more places to spend this kind of money to improve traffic flow in the City. This would be a gross over kill of what is not a very big problem. And I use this intersection a lot in my traveling throughout the CITY/. Where's our Councellor Mitch Tweel. Is this one of his ideas like the other brian storm. I think he's been around pretty much long enough if this is where he wants to spend the money in our Ward.
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- BOB DOLE
- - June 21st, 2010 at 19:50:52
The traffic circle in S'side is a joke. it's way to small, and about every 2nd driver has no idea how to use it.
I drive through the circle almost twice a day and i see all the stupid drivers have a hard time using it. so image if they put two of them on PEI.
and for the commenter who said we need training, that really makes us look smart.
we need to re-test all drivers every 5 years and once you hit 70 it should be every 2 years. -
- Gas
- - June 21st, 2010 at 19:48:18
Good idea.
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- John
- - June 21st, 2010 at 19:44:00
I can't believe they are considering this. It took the island 2 years to learn how to use the 2 left turning lanes in stratford, and don't even mention the merge lanes on the bypass and coming onto the hillsborough bridge from bunberry. If they put a traffic circle in....wow....they better start offering free classes in every community centre on how to use one
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- Sky_rover
- - June 21st, 2010 at 19:41:40
I remember when the round-about in Summerside was talked about. People ranted and raved about Island drivers and how Island drivers would never learn to use it.
Well I for one am very glad the Provincial Government went ahead and built it. I was cold to the idea in the beginning.
When it was finely finished I can tell you from day one even with people just learning how to navigate there way through the round-around many of them for the first time, traffic was moving faster then before it was put in at high traffic flow times. I use it 2 or more times a day and it is not very often I am held up any more.
I have to ask Mr. BOB DOLE from PEI would he want the roundabout in Summerside put back to the way it was. I have asked that question a lot over the past years and no one after thinking about it, wanted to go back to what was there before.
Many people I have spoken to about the round about in Summerside believe the dimensions were mistakenly read in feet rather then what was or should have been meters. Many of these people I spoke to either lived in or traveled in the UK or NZ..
I do agree with the Taxpayer from Charlottetownp person that said get outside engineers. I would like to see a city planner from England or some other place in the world that uses roundabouts to come over and consult on the job. I believe our engineers would learn a lot and it would save us Island Tax Payers an awful lot of money in the long run.
