City to release data on expected intersection snarls along Valley line
City of Edmonton officials are set to finally reveal Thursday which clogged intersections are about to get worse up and down the Valley LRT Line.
It’s the type of information that left councillors “gobsmacked” when the first Metro Line trains prepared for passengers. It is a picture of worst-case wait times and queue lengths for every major intersection on a line that snakes past key traffic veins and arteries across southeast Edmonton.
The Journal pushed for an early release of the data so residents will know what to expect well in advance. It also gives context as council debates new development and possible traffic solutions — widening 75 Street north of Wagner Road and finding new park ’n’ ride locations.
“My constituents have been asking all the way up and down the line,” said Ward 11 Coun. Mike Nickel.
Nickel is hoping to see traffic projects along the route funded in the next capital budget.
“Our intersections are going to be failing at 66 Street and 23 Avenue. I’m kind of shooting in the dark when I’m asking for road widening,” he said, frustrated it’s taken this long to make the data public.
As part of the city’s contract with TransEd, the LRT consortium building the 13-kilometre line must meet minimum “measures of effectiveness” defining how long people can expect to sit in traffic once the line is running.
That includes anticipated average-vehicle delay, average queue length and maximum queue length whether motorists are turning right, turning left or going straight.
TransEd must meet these intersection performance standards as well as a 30-minute travel time for the train from Mill Woods to downtown.
After the Journal asked for the tables and the city’s legal department cleared them to be released, city administration wouldn’t release them publicly until they went to council. That release is now scheduled for Thursday, with a briefing for council members and the media. The deadline to open the LRT line is Dec. 15, 2020.
Adam Laughlin, head of infrastructure for Edmonton, said the data will show pinch points around the Holyrood/Bonnie Doon area, where people are already waiting through multiple light cycles to travel across some intersections.
But this is a long-term play, he said, and the city expects people will adjust and seek other routes or get on the LRT.
“What we’re trying to do with LRT is create the balance of the transportation system ... the maximum throughput in the corridor,” he said, adding that one LRT line can move as many people as six lanes of traffic.
Coun. Ben Henderson said he isn’t concerned about traffic because trains can hold at the station to let traffic through. But he wants more detail on how the city’s traffic signal experts and the TransEd rail operators will work together.