City puts brakes on shortcutting
The city is installing speed bumps and other measures in four Edmonton neighbourhoods this week in another attempt to stop vehicles from shortcutting.
“People have to get used to the fact that there’s going to be more traffic, but we’re hoping to have most of it on arterial roads,” Coun. Michael Oshry, chair of city council’s transportation committee, said Tuesday.
“There are way more than four (neighbourhoods) that need this work. We’re looking at ones that the neighbours were complaining about … but are also low-hanging fruit.”
Crews are putting in speed bumps or humps, speed tables (wider, flatter bumps that are easier for buses to cross), and digital speed feedback signs in Crestwood, Ottewell and Newton.
Traffic through access is also being restricted in Ormsby Place on 188th Street at 69th Avenue.
The main problems created by shortcutting are increased traffic on roads that aren’t designed for it, and speeding, Oshry said.
“It was the No. 1 issue we heard during the (civic) election … We’re putting the plans in place,” he said.
“We’re confident they’re going to work to stop shortcutting through neighbourhoods and also make the traffic slower.”
Last summer, intersections were closed, sidewalks expanded into corners and other moves were taken as part of an attempt to reduce shortcutting in Pleasantview and Prince Charles.
But one road in Pleasantview was recently reopened to through traffic because some drivers were making dangerous U-turns at the barrier, while others simply moved to other streets nearby.
“It’s not an exact science,” Oshry said. “If you’re stopping traffic from one neighbourhood, sometimes it goes to another.”
City staff will collect feedback on how well the calming measures work and introduce them in other areas next spring before recommending a community traffic management policy in June.
General transportation supervisor Darryl Mullen said issues in the four neighbourhoods now being studied are generally on roads that don’t have other parallel routes, which exist in Pleasantview and Prince Charles.
One concern that will be examined over winter is how much impact speed bumps — 100 centimetres high and two metres wide — and speed tables have on snow clearing, he said.
There are 25 of these speed bumps in Edmonton, although they haven’t been constructed for a couple of decades, he said, adding the new measures are considered permanent.
The transportation committee decided to try the pilot project last month following an auditor’s report that called for short-term options to deal with local shortcutting problems.
It (shortcutting) was the No. 1 issue we heard during the (civic) election … We’re putting the plans in place.