Officials with the City of Fredericton say they could be looking at building a third bridge in the capital city to help ease traffic congestion down the road.
With the population set to grow to 92,000 by 2041 and rush hour traffic causing more and more delays, City of Fredericton traffic engineer Jon Lewis said a third bridge is something that will be considered in the next major traffic study set to be done in 2020.
READ MORE: New Brunswick’s Route 114 reopens to traffic after 2.5 months
“Our next major transportation study will probably be around 2020, and we expect one of the key deliverables for that will basically be trying to find a location for where the third bridge should go and a better idea when the timing is,” Lewis said.
He said the study will give city staff a better idea of when another bridge would be needed in the city.
Lewis said the 2010 study was co-funded between the province and the city, and said that will likely be the case again. Typically, bridges fall under the responsibility of the province’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, even when a bridge is located within a municipality.
Lewis said the number of vehicles on the bridge has increased over the years.
“People used to joke that we didn’t have a peak hour in Fredericton, we had a peak 15 minutes, but certainly year-over-year as traffic volumes increase, we’re seeing it takes longer and longer to get across the bridge, particularly in the peak hours and the peak direction,” Lewis said.
WATCH: Median recommended to eliminate left turns at busy Fredericton intersection
He said he’s also noticed that any kind of minor collision, snow or heavy rain has also been causing major backups on the bridge.
“We keep an eye on the traffic volumes on the bridges, so, for example, the Westmorland Street bridge has about 52,000 vehicles a day crossing it which actually makes it the busiest roadway link in the province,” Lewis said.
Lewis said there’s no location finalized for the new bridge, but said he anticipates that it would likely be”somewhere in the upriver area.”
“One of the main challenges right now with the main city bridge, the Westmorland Street bridge is that it dumps people directly into the middle of the downtown, so a lot of the people using the bridge are necessarily destined for downtown but then are using downtown as a through-route so a third bridge in the upriver area would provide more flexibility in terms of routing around downtown,” Lewis said.
In an email statement from the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, spokesperson Jeremy Trevors said the department will continue to work closely with the City of Fredericton to address transportation needs.
He said the Westmorland Street Bridge opened in 1981 while the Princess Margaret Bridge opened in 1959.
“We are tracking down traffic stats but they will take some time to compile,” Trevors said.
Comments