City officials to reinstate controversial right-turn lane on Jasper Avenue
Edmonton officials are pulling back on a key piece of the Jasper Avenue pilot project after traffic studies showed drivers were having a hard time making a turn.
Experience Jasper Avenue took away the dedicated right-turn lane for eastbound drivers trying to turn right onto 109 Street.
That’s coming back Wednesday, according to Ward 6 Coun. Scott McKeen, who said he’s heard from a lot of frustrated drivers: “People have been really upset and I think the city did a poor job of communicating why the installation was done.”
City officials said taking away the right-turn lane was meant to increase pedestrian safety because many people on foot felt drivers were not seeing them. They didn’t yield when pedestrians tried to use the crosswalk.
But without the dedicated turn space, drivers were waiting a lot longer to turn and clogging up the through-lanes while they wait.
Recent city traffic monitoring found the average wait time tripled, with cars waiting on average 50 seconds, up from the 16 seconds they waited before the project.
The lineup went up to 11 cars during the morning rush hour, up from an average of five cars.
And some local residents have said that’s not even the worst time of the day.
They suggest it can be harder to make that turn when even more people are on foot getting lunch during the day. City officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday. McKeen said he was told the city will make a public announcement about the change Wednesday morning.
McKeen said he’d like the Office of Traffic Safety to install new video monitoring technology to quantify and analyze the number of near misses at that intersection.
He said the city should also look at separating the foot and vehicle traffic signal cycles.
If motorists get a dedicated right turn phase from the signal, they would be less likely to conflict with pedestrians.
The rest of the pilot project is scheduled to stay in place until October to allow city officials to collect more data on the traffic impacts. It’s a public engagement project meant to gauge resident reaction to the concepts in the plan.
If approved in the 2019-22 capital budget, the permanent changes would include concrete sidewalk extensions to reduce risk for pedestrians, more traffic signal changes, and more trees.