THUNDER BAY – A set of traffic lights at a Memorial Avenue intersection will remain in place, though city administration expects changes to the timing system will improve traffic flow.
Thunder Bay city council on Monday night voted to stick with the status quo at the intersection of Memorial and 13th avenues, which is fully controlled by traffic signals.
Coun. Larry Hebert had previously brought forward a motion directing administration to study whether the signals should be converted to just pedestrian crossing lights. Along Memorial Avenue, there are four sets of lights in the less than one-kilometre stretch from Central Avenue and the Harbour Expressway, which can bottleneck traffic.
Kayla Dixon, the city’s director of engineering and operations, said there would be “limited benefit” to changing the signals, which would come with a projected cost of $80,000.
“With that pedestrian activated intersection, we would see approximately the same number of delays and time of delays that we see now,” Dixon said.
“We do have some recommendations within the report that will improve the green time on Memorial Avenue just by reducing the pedestrian timing on that traffic signal. The delays within that corridor would be very similar whether we keep it as a full signalized traffic intersection or reduce it to just a pedestrian activated intersection.”
Those recommendations include a minimum 10-second delay before the controller is prompted by a vehicle turning right off 13th Avenue, reducing green time for 13th Avenue traffic, reducing pedestrian crossing times and using video detection on the east side of the intersection.
A traffic study conducted earlier this year found during an eight-hour peak period there were more than 11,000 vehicles on Memorial Avenue, 435 vehicles on 13th Avenue or the mini-mall on the east side of the intersection and 97 pedestrians crossing. Of those 435 vehicles, 261 turned left from 13th Avenue to travel northbound on Memorial Avenue.
Changing the intersection to a pedestrian crossing would not prohibit those left turns, a scenario that would become challenging without stopping oncoming traffic.
“If just a pedestrian crossing was available, left turns would not be advisable during that pedestrian crossing time,” Dixon said. “When people are stopping to make a left turn north onto Memorial, they would be possibly encouraged to do more risky manoeuvers as they wait longer and longer for a gap in traffic.”
But Coun. Aldo Ruberto, who along with Hebert and Coun. Brian McKinnon voted against maintaining the full set of signals, argued the number of vehicles slowed on Memorial Avenue isn’t worth having that left turn, especially with another set of lights less than a minute away at 11th Avenue.
“If you stop at one light, within maybe 30 seconds you have to stop at another light. Really, there’s no real benefit for traffic,” Ruberto said.
“Having this there is not a benefit to the majority of the city. It doesn’t benefit the city. We should be improving traffic flow, not restricting traffic flow. The whole idea is to move people around and this does not help.”
Coun. Iain Angus complimented the work done by administration and said their recommendations balance all users of the intersection.
“They’ve clearly listened to what the issue is, which is how fast people can get down Memorial Avenue,” Angus said. “They’re going to allow them to speed up a bit but at the same time have the opportunity for people to make left turns onto Memorial Avenue as well as pedestrians crossing there. I think it’s a win, win, win.”
