An idea is being floated that would see a section of Edmonton’s Stony Plain Road — westbound between 149 and 156 streets — become a one-way.
The new proposal has emerged from some businesses in west Edmonton as a way to help keep traffic moving, and keep construction costs down for the $1.8-billion Valley Line LRT.
Councillor Andrew Knack confirmed Monday that he has now written deputy city manager Adam Laughlin, asking city staff to consider that as an option when a report comes to city council in March.
The proposal suggests having two stretches of one-way traffic in each direction, a block apart.
“The thinking behind that is, 100 Avenue is already heavily used by most commuter traffic, ” Knack said in an interview.
Watch below: Whether or not to give the go-ahead to the west LRT expansion will be one of the most important decisions Edmonton City Council will make this term. Vinesh Pratap looked into the issue on Jan. 5, 2017.
“Eliminating the eastbound lane — because you’re just going to have one lane in each direction… and going into two westbound lanes, not only shouldn’t hurt anything in terms of traffic flow, but in fact, might have the the potential to make it a better flow and maybe even remove the need for a grade separation.”
Knack has spent the past week or so canvassing the area to get a sense from businesses on what the final configuration of the LRT should look like.
“I put it out on social media as I was doing my walk-through and heard a lot of positive feedback around that idea. There was only a handful of people who weren’t too keen on the one-way approach, but most felt that idea has a lot of potential.”
Knack said his sense is the train would run on the northern half of Stony Plain Road, leaving the vehicle traffic on the south heading west. That way, at both 142 and 149 streets, there would be a left-turn lane to head south towards 87 Avenue and eventually the Whitemud.
The real bottleneck he envisions is at 149 Street.
“There’s fairly equal traffic volumes almost in all four directions, and that’s why grade separation was being recommended there,” Knack said.
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