The mayor’s idea for a traffic light on Victoria Road to help resolve the issues at the Mutas Road intersection appears to be dead on arrival.
Mayor Mark McKee suggested a traffic light that would stop highway-bound traffic on Victoria Road could resolve issues at the beleaguered Trans-Canada Highway intersection.
A report by McElhanney Consulting, the engineering firm hired to come up with a new design for the intersection, says the light “would worsen delays for the critical movements. Also, the signal would back up traffic into the Victoria/Wright St. intersection at times.”
McElhanney says it came to its conclusion using a low level of traffic modelling that included a number of assumptions, however it says its analysis is “optimistic in terms of the traffic operations and the signal impacts due to the assumptions used.”
Should council accept the verdict, it means McElhanney would continue with detailed design work on the roundabout plan.
The plan is to build a roundabout at Wright Street and Victoria Road, while block left turns into the Shell/Tim Hortons, and out of the Woodenhead Loop.
McElhanney has estimated the cost of construction at $2.1 million, with the bulk of the expense going towards the roundabout. A more refined cost will be known once detailed engineering drawings are done.