M.L. council candidates on traffic flow in the city

Chiverton does see a need for traffic lights at the intersection of Highway 4 and 55. He said the high volume of traffic, specifically semi-trucks and tourist vehicles becomes a bottleneck and would be worth considering lights for.

Feeling any more lights in the city would be an unnecessary expense, incumbent candidate Curtis Paylor said the bylaw recently passed to reduce the speed limit on Highway 4 while installing a pedestrian activated crosswalk should mitigate some speed and safety issues.

He added, right now, with the way main routes set up with signage and the one street light, traffic flow is adequate and serviceable.

“As a council, we’ve done our due diligence in the past and we have done, upon request, traffic studies and the data which comes back continues speak to traffic flow. It’s adequate at this point and adding traffic lights would be a bigger expense for sure but time will tell if we need to put up traffic lights,” Paylor said.

Agreeing with both Paylor and Chiverton, Tom Harrison said traffic flow is good.

People understand the best way out of the city and traffic routes so I don’t see anything which would be an issue,” he said.

Harrison said if he were to support to installation of street lights it would be at the intersection of Highway 4 and 55.

“As the city grows and the traffic flows change, I think there will be a need for it but right now I think there’s a good balance,” he said.

Glen Winkler, a newcomer to this election, said the city is getting close to needing more lights, definitely along Highway 4.

“If growth continues and we continue to build new houses every year and businesses continue to expand, it only falls into place we will have increased traffic and when the wait gets too long or safety is challenged by the traffic flows we’ll have to address that,” Winkler said.

As for Highway 4, Winkler said it would be nice to prevent accidents rather than waiting for them to happen.

“I don’t think the time to get from point A to B in Meadow Lake is a concern. For me it’d be safety, can our young people walk across to McDonald’s or are people safe when they’re driving to me are the major issues,” he said.

Possibly in the future, incumbent candidate Merlin Seymour would support more lights but at the present time, he said rules of the road are more than enough.

He added with the speed limit change on Highway 4, traffic will be slower and will allow more time for vehicles to pull onto the highway from service road accesses.

“Rules of the road are very important, sometimes they get passed by. Years ago before I was on council, stop signs were put up and it basically turned into a raceway so that’s why they were taken out,” he said.

Working for the Ministry of Highways and Transportation, incumbent candidate Conrad Read is more than familiar with the reasons Meadow Lake is set up the way it is and how it should accommodate traffic flow as the city grows.

“We’ve heard, ‘why don’t you install lights at Highway 4 and 55 or Highway 4 and Ninth Ave. W.?’ the fact is when you start putting in lights, accidents do increase,” Read said. “What you’ll find through the Transportation Association of Canada studies is there’ll be more rear ending, more people trying to beat the lights and more broad side accidents.”

Through past studies, long-term planning suggests lights will be needed at the intersections of Highway 4 and 55 as well as Highway 4 and Ninth Ave. W/ but at the present time and based on traffic volume per day, lights aren’t warranted.

Cost wise, Read said two sets of traffic lights will cost roughly $400,000 and reiterated adding them or signs would cause other problems.

“If somebody says you need for instance, a four-way stop sign by the post office because it’s hard to turn on there at noon with everybody going to get their mail, you’d want a traffic engineer to go in there, study the area and determine if that’s the best place,” Read said. “Some people might jump at the fact and put the four-way stop there but what they probably don’t realize is in a busy time, you’re going to back that traffic all the way up to the only stop light so now we’re going to have a congestion issue.”

Agreeing the change in speed on Highway 4 will help mitigate any issues, Read admitted it was done because of public demand and not studies but added, at the end of the day, studies are what’s relied on beyond resident inquiries.

“If everyone says ‘I want a stop sign her’ and you entertain every one of those, there would be no money left so that’s why warrants are set up,” he said.

Candidate Richard Levesque did not return comment.

Seeking election for six council chairs are incumbents Conrad Read, Kim Chiverton, Curtis Paylor, Merlin Seymour, and newcomers Tom Harrison, Richard Levesque and Glen Winkler are seeking election.

Mayor Gary Vidal was acclaimed following the Sept. 21 nomination deadline.

Voters cast their ballots on Oct. 26 at the civic centre.

Mail-in ballots and advance ballots are also being accepted at city hall.

Colton Swiderski is meadowlakeNOW’s municipal affairs, crime and court, health and education reporter. He can be reached at cswiderski@jpbg.ca or tweet him @coltonswiderski.

by Colton Swiderski

M.L. council candidates on traffic flow in the city

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