Mayor Responds To Questions About Getting Traffic Lights At Intersection Called "A Death Trap"
By Robert Thomas
Changing the intersection of the Trans-Canada Highway and 9th Avenue NW is something the City says has been studied to death and its time to take action and put in vehicle activated traffic lights before there are serious injuries or fatalities happen. The issue was discussed at length during Monday afternoon’s regular Council meeting.
At Tuesday’s post Council press conference Mayor Clive Tolley was asked for his feelings on the length the City given previous attempts to have traffic control lights installed.
MJ Independent pointed to a similar letter writing request back in 2012 by then Mayor Glenn Hagel which was ultimately turned down. See Issue Explainer below.
Story continues after Issue Explainer
ISSUE EXPLAINER
In a March 14, 2012 the then Transportation Services Committee was discussing the issue and then Councillor Terry Coleman said he would like to bring the issue to the Mayor’s attention. (See email below)
This ultimately led to then Mayor Hagel writing the Minister and Department to have traffic control lights installed.
During the discussions by the Transportation Services Committee at that time it was noted driver confusion was a major concern at the intersection and could lead to tragedy.
An email to members of the Transportation Services Committee which lead to then Mayor Glenn Hagel writing a letter to the Ministry requesting traffic control lights at the intersection
Mayor Tolley responded he had friends killed at the intersection and many attempts have been made to have traffic control lights installed at the intersection going back decades.
“That’s our frustration quite frankly Robert when I was a young man I was friends with the Gamble brothers and three of them were involved in an accident at 9th Avenue (NW) and the Trans-Canada Highway two of them past and one was injured and that was in the Sixties,” the Mayor replied.
“Since that time many Mayors, many Councils have written letters to the Minister of Highways, whoever happened to be the minister of the day, and brought this idea up we need something done at that intersection. Many of those letters requested that traffic lights be installed.”
Mayor Tolley said the City would like to see action taken and not simply a study.
“I think what we are trying to do was started many years ago. We just want to get the government to re-focus on this problem. Not just study it but actually take some action. Our view is put the traffic lights there,” he said.
“We in Saskatchewan don’t have traffic lights on the TransCanada Highway. You do in Manitoba and you do in Alberta and we don’t understand why Moose Jaw can’t have traffic lights for the safety of our citizens”
Mayor Tolley was asked to respond to an FOI request that showed there were hundreds, in actuality 2,200 pages, of reports and documents held by the Department of Highways regarding the intersection.
The number of pages were from July 15, 2005 and January 22, 2020 and by the amount of activity between the community and the Province about the intersection has in all likelihood grown since the January 2020 FOI request. See Below.
Response from the Department of Highways showing in January 2020 there were 2,200 pages of documents related to the intersection from July 2005 and January 2020
Response from the Ministry of Highways denying the request to waive the $1,920 in fees
The Mayor admitted he had not read the volume of studies but referred to hos own personal observations of the intersection as a disaster waiting to happen.
“I haven’t read all of these studies. I just know when I drove through that intersection last week there was five vehicles in the intersection at the same time. Two of them were pulling trailers. It was a recipe for disaster. It was actually just the good driving of one or two of the drivers to avoid an accident,” the Mayor responded.
Traffic at the intersection of the TransCanada Highway and the 9th Avenue NW crossing (looking north from between the divided highway lanes) on Tuesday morning - MJ Independent photo
Mayor Tolley said installing vehicle actuated traffic control lights would have little impact on traffic flow - especially if there are no vehicles wanting to cross to and from the North Service Road.
“All we have to do is stop the traffic and let the people cross and then stop them and as we talked about it will be vehicle actuated. In another words if you are travelling the TransCanada Highway and there is nobody waiting to cross you will have a green light. You will just be able to carry on on your way.”
ISSUE EXPLAINER
After the FOI denial from the Department of Highways then MLA Warren Michelson was asked if he could provide details about what had been done to increase the safety of the intersection.
Michelson responded “Highways has conducted a number of traffic surveys through that intersection and concluded that the traffic is within reason of the appropriate mechanisms.”
The MLA also responded he had asked the Department to do an extensive review of the intersection.
The email response is below.
