The Town of Bonnyville wants to know more about the issues surrounding left-hand turns on main street.
Council voted in favour during their July 9 meeting of sending the topic to the policing committee, and having town engineers take a look at the concern further before presenting possible solutions.
Coun. Rene Van Brabant originally brought the subject up during council’s June 25 meeting, as it’s very difficult to make turns on main street during certain periods.
“I suggested that we apply to make left-handed turns illegal from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on weekdays,” he said, adding it would include the intersections at 50 Ave. and 50 St. by Brosseau’s Department Store and 50 Ave. and 46 St. by Sobeys.
Although main street runs through town, it falls under the control of Alberta Transportation, as it’s part of Hwy. 28. Any changes need to first be approved by the province.
“The lights are currently the responsibility of Alberta Transportation,” noted CAO Mark Power. “We would need their approval to change anything at those lights, and if they agreed, one of the conditions they may require is that we pay the cost of making the changes to the lights. But, it’s an unknown at this time.”
While council noted there are peak times along main street that cause problems, some councillors didn’t believe eliminating left-hand turns was the right answer.
“Yes, there is a congestion problem, but it’s short-lived,” explained Coun. Brian McEvoy. “If this was a larger centre, like Red Deer, Lethbridge, or Edmonton, people would just suck it up and get used to it because they expect the traffic to be higher. Here, we don’t expect the traffic to be higher, and if we’re going to look at this, we need to do it through traffic engineers who look at all options, because it may be an advanced turn light that’s a better solution as opposed to a no left turn solution.”
As previous information was available on the intersections located downtown, Mayor Gene Sobolewski wasn’t in favour of completely banning left-hand turns.
“We have several reports that are collecting dust because nothing has been done about it, because Alberta Transportation, every time we brought it up, we heard the same story… this wasn’t a priority for them,” he detailed. “We’ve paid for studies that gave option after option as to what to do with the Sobeys corner, at the Brosseau’s corner, and what to do at the other entrances into town and things like that.”
Collisions in those areas was something Coun. Elisa Brosseau wanted more information on. For example, if it’s the result of people making these types of turns.
“I would want to know what the statistics are on those accidents, because it seems to me that intersection (50 Ave. and 46 St.) always has an accident at it. Maybe it’s from the turning.”
From Jan. 1, 2018 to July 11, 2019 Bonnyville RCMP responded to five collisions at the Brosseau’s intersection. Two of them involved someone making a left-hand turn, while one was the result of a driver attempting to avoid someone in the left turning lane.
The Sobeys’ intersection had a total of 10 collisions in that timeframe, three involved vehicles making left-handed turns.
Council felt that referring the topic to the policing committee would allow more background to be presented, while also offering suggestions they could bring to Alberta Transportation.
Once they have a response from the policing committee, Sobolewski encouraged council to approach Alberta Transportation and say, “We have an issue and we want you to pay for it.”
