Highway 22 and Highway 1A Intersection

I have to thank Rory for his excellent comment below on whether the intersection is the responsibility of the Province.

The reconstruction, or attention to improving that intersection is the responsibility of the Province. However, it is the responsibility and jurisdiction of the Town to have traffic safety reports done and notify the Province if provincial highways are causing safety concerns within the municipality. In this case, the safety issues must be addressed as soon as possible. This matter should be of highest priority to this council until the matter is resolved.

On past councils, I was always able to work well with the Province to ensure that traffic lights were installed at interstections that had become safety concerns within our community. Janis Tarchuk, our MLA worked with us, and I wonder what has happened to that relationship. For example, I was told when mayor that it would be ten years before we had lights on Griffin and Highway 22, and at George Fox Trail and Highway 22, but the council of the day was able to move that forward. It took time, resolve and perserverance! As you all know, I have plenty of all three when it comes to safety to Cochrane citizens.

The Highway 22/Highway 1A intersection does need major redesign to accommodate future growth, however there are some obvious improvements that can be done immediately that may address the ongoing issues. For example, there are no advanced left turn lights. This encourages people turning left coming down the hill or turning onto Highway 1A from Highway 22 to dart through the intersection in front of oncoming traffic. I have seen many close calls. It is also an obvious solution to ensure that people who want to turn right onto Highway 1A from Highway 22 have a dedicated lane to do so. This would allow people turning right to move out of the northbound lane and ease up the line of traffic. Getting through that intersection can take 25 minutes during busy times of day!

The most important thing for the Province to do is to stop people from passing on the right to get around the people who are trying to turn left onto Highway 1A from Highway 22. There is no dedicated lane to allow people to pass northbound traffic on the right, and therefore, that maneouver is actually illegal and dangerous. That is where all the darting happens with near misses where someone may be killed, when people decide they have waited too long to turn into Town when coming down the hill, or to get onto westbound Highway 1A. Some days there are line ups all the way past the Quigley Drive intersection and all the way up the hill past the Sunset Ridge developments coming south. These traffic issues are not going away. The Council must address these matters asap. Someone will be seriously hurt if nothing is done!

When elected, I plan to make improvements to this intersection priority number 1. At the AUMA Convention in Edmonton the newly elected council must meet with the Minister and ensure this matter is addressed before winter.

On another point, I will immediately investigate why the Town has not yet secured a water supply, and will get onto ensuring there is one in place. Enough procrastinating. If we desire to continue to grow and encourage economic development, we need a long term solution to water supply-conservation alone will not suffice.