Concern raised over ‘dangerous’ Allanburg bend
Alysha Browning has long been concerned about the roadway behind her house.
For the past seven years, she’s lived on Clifton Street, tucked in a small residential community between the Allanburg Bridge and a nearby S-bend of Highway 20. For the most part, it’s a quiet neighbourhood.
However, at any given moment, Browning knows that quiet can be broken by the screeching of tires, the crunch of a vehicle hitting a guardrail or the thud of a vehicle landing in a ditch.
“It’s such a dangerous curve,” she says. “People ignore the speed reduction and come through the bend too fast. It happens too often.”
Browning recalls one night when a car careened into the ditch behind her house.
“I could see it from my backyard and you could hear the radio blaring but you didn’t know if the driver was hurt or worse. You could just hear the radio playing as if nothing happened. It was eerie.”
In that case, the driver was unhurt.
There have been two recent collisions along that stretch of road — including a fatal one.
On Sept. 7, a 54-year-old Hamilton woman was killed in a singlevehicle crash after she lost control of the vehicle she was driving eastbound. Her Hyundai Santa Fe struck the guardrail and crossed the westbound lane of traffic before coming to a rest in the ditch on the west side of the road.
“It is an area that we have been called out to many times,” says Thorold fire Chief Brian Dickson.
Browning says she and her neighbours have raised concerns regarding the dangers of this stretch of road for years, asking municipal and regional politicians for action.
“It’d be great to see guardrails on both sides of the road, something that draws drivers’ attention to the reduced speed limit and, maybe, if possible, a straightening of the road so there isn’t this dangerous curve,” says Browning. “Something has to change.”
In September 2016, Niagara Region’s public works committee received a report outlining three locations in need of review, identified by councillors as a result of constituent concerns. Highway 20, between Allanport Road and Centre Street was one of the areas identified.
“A concern was raised by a local resident regarding the frequency of collisions occurring along this section of roadway. On a few occasions the vehicles have ended up in residents’ backyards,” says the report.
In June 2017, a report to the Region’s public works committee recommended a speed limit reduction on Highway 20 from Allanport Road to 545 metres west of that road. At the time, the posted speed limit was 80 km/h with a reduction to 60 km/h and then 50 km/h
The report identified that when the bridge was up, queues could often extend well into the section currently signed at 60 km/h and that section was considered to be insufficient in both length and sight distances to allow for an adequate transition.
“In that report, a couple of things dealt with the issues brought up by concerned residents, including the speed — reducing it from 60 to 50 — and adding a guardrail,” says Frank Tassone, the Region’s associate director of transportation and engineering.
Those new speed limits, he says, have been posted in the area.
“At the end of the day, though, it’s about drivers’ habits and that be a very difficult thing for us to control,” he says.
The Region has also installed LED lighting to increase visibility, and its partnered with Niagara Regional Police on speed and alcohol enforcement in the area.
Even with the reduced speed limits in the area, it remains a difficult area to address traffic concerns, says Thorold Mayor Ted Luciani.
The Region has reports of 16 collisions on the road between Allanport Road and Centre Street, east of the lift bridge from June 2016 to June 2018.
“Even myself as a cyclist who uses the Greater Niagara Circle Route, and I approach the bridge to cross the road to the other side of Highway 20, I see people come flying over that bridge. They’re speeding like crazy,” Luciani says. “I’ve been after them for years to get things slowed down around there because it’s dangerous for cyclists.”
Says Browning, “We just don’t want to see any more tragic accidents here.”