‘Somebody is going to die’
Concerns mount about Lingan Road/Union Highway intersection safety
RIVER RYAN — It’s the evening rush hour at the intersection of Lingan Road and Union Highway, a country crossroads that seems as if it’s in the middle of an urban centre because of the heavy traffic.
Both directions of the Lingan Road — one towards Sydney and the other towards the power station — have a stop sign and that’s the only measure controlling the flow. Motorists travelling towards Scotchtown and New Waterford on the Union Highway or back towards Sydney or Glace Bay have the right of way.
For some, the River Ryan intersection is just not safe.
“There have been regular accidents, some quite serious ones,” said retired Dr. Peter Littlejohn, who dealt with injuries over the years in the emergency room at the New Waterford Hospital.
“The thing is the highway is getting busier.”
One of the worst was when he was in an ambulance coming back from taking a patient to Sydney in the mid-1980s.
“There have been regular accidents, some quite serious.”
Dr. Peter Littlejohn New Waterford resident
‘IT WAS A HORRENDOUS THING’
At the intersection, a car lost control on the slippery road and was involved in a collision with another vehicle. Despite being on the scene, by the time he and the ambulance crew got to the woman, she was dead.
“It was a horrendous thing. Not long before that there was another serious accident with major, major injuries. It’s a regular thing there,” recalled the doctor who began practising in New Waterford in 1974.
“It’s about time the intersection was looked at more carefully.”
Littlejohn said the sightline looking towards New Waterford can be tricky as there’s a crest.
He’s had a close call there himself.
“Last year I was driving some friends to Sydney and I came out from the Lingan direction, looked right, looked left, looked right, pulled out and this car came zooming past. I had to slam my brakes on to avoid an accident. He was driving too fast,” Littlejohn said.
Littlejohn is a great fan of roundabouts.
“They work quite well.
They don’t impede the traffic. They do force traffic to slow down,” he said.
‘LIKE IT’S NON-STOP’
From his house on Mills Drive, which is parallel to the Union Highway, Pat Lamey can hear the loud bang anytime there’s an accident at the intersection.
“Then the sirens. Here we go again because it just seems like it’s non-stop,” he said.
“I just notice that intersection has more accidents than should be acceptable for an intersection.”
Lamey has had a couple of near misses himself at the intersection.
“Just somebody didn’t see me coming up the hill,” he said of people leaving the stop sign.
He’s also seen people drive around a car that’s stopped instead of waiting.
Lamey said the intersection isn’t working the way it is now.
“It’s people and sometimes you have to change something to prevent people from doing things,” he said.
“People are just in a hurry, taking chances. They are circumventing rules of the road. … Everytime an accident happens there, it’s ‘OK, enough of this.’
“Somebody is going to die.” Lamey, who also favours a roundabout, said he avoids the intersection during peak times and will travel the nearby rougher Roaches Road to New Waterford instead.
“I don’t want to deal with that intersection,” he said.
Lamey doesn’t want his daughter, who will be starting university, to take the Lingan Road/Union Highway route but a nearby job might make it unavoidable for her.
“It’s freaking me out,” Lamey said.
“Go there 4-5 (p.m.) on a Friday. It’s busy. People are flying trying to get out.”
‘DANGEROUS, DANGEROUS’
Joan Connors had an accident at the intersection within the last couple of years.
She was at the stop sign on Lingan Road and heading towards Sydney. And she said she looked both ways.
Connors pulled out and hit a car. Her car was driven into oncoming traffic so she headed for the ditch. Fortunately, she avoided serious injuries.
‘It would be great if they had a four-way stop there,” she said, adding a lowered speed limit might help.
“I am a careful driver. ... I would be very happy if they could do something to make that intersection safer.”
Usually, her husband would be with her so there are two pairs of eyes on traffic but Connors was alone that day. When she told others about her accident, she said she got a common response.
“Everybody said ‘That is just a dangerous, dangerous intersection,’” Connors said.
MLA INVOLVED
Cape Breton Centre-Whitney Pier NDP MLA Kendra Coombes said the intersection is commonly among the complaints she receives.
“We have been talking to Public Works about this intersection for four years,” Coombes said.
Coombes knows the intersection well herself — long wait times at the stop signs during peak times and traffic moving fast.
“People have legitimate concerns,” she said about the need to slow traffic or help navigate the flow of traffic.
Some of the suggestions that have come from concerned members of the public include a four-way stop, traffic lights or a roundabout.
‘BAD DRIVERS’
“Oh my God, I couldn’t even begin to count. There’s been numerous accidents there,” said Scotchtown Volunteer Fire Department Chief Raymond Eksal, who has been with the department since 1995.
“Everybody tries to blame it on the road. And in my opinion, it’s not the road. It’s not the intersection. It’s the drivers. ... It’s bad drivers. The majority of our accidents there are people that are stopped at the stop sign, usually coming from Lingan power plant that pull out in front of the people coming down the hill.”
Eksal is among those who’ve had near misses there.
“People wait. They see vehicles coming. They wait until the vehicles are right on top of them and then they pull out. That is the majority of what happens there,” he said.
He’s not in favour of a roundabout as he said that will create total chaos in the winter and shut the road down.
“Those roads get slippery. We’re probably the last area responded to by (provincial Public Works) as far as plow
ing and salting,” he said.
“And the only thing that makes that road passable getting up that hill is the momentum.”
So far this year, he said there’s been about seven accidents at the intersection.
“And we’re only in April,” Eksal said.
He doubts lowering speeds will help as people may not take heed.
NO STUDY
While there are calls for a traffic study, Gary Andrea, spokesman for Public Works, said there has not been a traffic study or vehicle count specific to the Lingan Road/ Union Highway intersection.
Furthermore, he said the department does not have plans to install a roundabout or make changes to the intersection.
A request for statistics on accidents to the Cape Breton Regional Police was not supplied by deadline.
Meanwhile, that stretch of the Lingan Road isn’t the only one stirring concern.
Morgan Krszwda lives in a neighbourhood near the intersection of Lingan Road and Buller Street in Whitney Pier. Buller, unlike a number of streets intersecting Lingan, does not have a four-way stop.
She said she’s afraid to let her eight-year-old son walk across to the school bus stop, so she drives him to school (in the evenings, he gets off on the opposite side so it’s safer).
“Cars are just constantly speeding,” she said.
“Even when I’ve walked him over, we’re standing along the side of the road and cars don’t slow down to let you go. … Cars are always flying.”