Cameron Street Bridge Traffic Circle Approved

Monday, October 01, 2007 09:25 PM

Council has approved a traffic circle on the north end of the Cameron Street Bridge

The access to North Nechako Road from the new Cameron Street Bridge, will be from a traffic circle. Currently the only traffic circle in Prince George is at the Treasure Cove Casino.

Councilor Murry Krause was concerned about the long B-train trucks heading into a traffic circle. Project leader, Frank Blues says ICBC has provided information supporting this kind of move, and the size of the traffic circle would be large enough to accomodate large trucks. "Typically the large trucks take two lanes as they go around."

Mayor Colin Kinsley says he remembers going into one in Edmonton in the winter, "And I was wondering just what the heck was going on but I put 'er into four wheel drift and made it through,"

Prince George City Council has approved that style of intersection rather than the traditional traffic lights because of cost and safety factors.

Staff have advised that initial estimates of upgrading intersections at the north and south sides of the bridge, have come in higher than first thought.

Initially, staff thought those upgrades would cost $1.10 million, and would be included in the estimated $9.5 million dollar project.

Now, new estimates indicate the upgrade to the River Road (south side) of the bridge will be $1.57 million alone. And the upgrades on the north side depend on which design Council would approve.

In all, it means the costs of the Cameron Street Bridge are climbing. ( all amounts are in millions)

Items	Signals at North End	Roundabout Version
South Intersection Improvement	$1.57	$1.57
North Intersection Improvement	$1.009	$ .834
Bridge Reconstruction	$7.786	$6.857
20% contingency	$ 2.07	$ 1.85

TOTAL	$12.44 million	$11.11 million

The pricing noted does not include the additional $200 thousand dollars for widening the cyclist/pedestrian lane.

Project leader Frank Blues says he wanted to see a decision on the widened pedestrian lanes now so it wouldn't bog down the tender process.

"I think we have to bite the bullet and get on with it, " said Councilor Don Bassermann as he spoke in support of spending the $200 thousand extra.

Councilor Debora Munoz wanted the lane to be widened to the full 3 meters, which would add another $1.03 million to the price tag. She says the full three meters are needed to provide a safe lane for cyclists and pedestrians.

Councilor Brian Skakun worried that motion would cause more delays "We do not need to delay this anymore. The costs have already gone up two million dollars, we have to defeat this ammendment and get on with the business of building the bridge."

Mayor Kinsley was not in favour of spending that kind of money, but said he heard what his fellow Councilors were saying and would go along with what they wanted.

Blues says Staff feels confident there won't be any safety issues if the widening was limited to 2.5 meters.He says the width provides enough space for oncoming cyclists to pass each other without incident.

The City has the approval to borrow $5.9 million dollars, and has recently received one million from the Federal Government and $1 Million from the Provincial Government. That would bring the total of available funding to $7.9 million.

The final bridge design will be ready by the end of November.

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Posted on Monday, October 01, 2007 09:25 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Chester on October 1 2007 9:33 PM

May wonders never cease. Press on. Chester

Posted by: REALIST on October 1 2007 10:29 PM

good to see traffic matters can all be solved with the ability to skid the vehicle sucessfuly. Only in Prince George could a four wheel drift be considered the cure to driving indecision!!!! Truly, we all live in the wild wild west!!!! Yeehaw let's go driftin'.

Posted by: owl on October 1 2007 11:09 PM

ROundabolut in PG .... people here can't use merge lanes properly, how the heck are they ever going to learn how to use roundabouts ........

Posted by: owl on October 1 2007 11:10 PM

ROundabolut .... hmmm ... well you know what I mean .... LOL

Posted by: owl on October 1 2007 11:22 PM

I would like to see what happens to the bike lane which is supposed to be incorporated in the bridge. Two wheeled vehicles have more accidents in roundabouts than signalized intersection. The typical accident is between the bike that has entered the roundabout and wishes to go around the roundabout past the first leg. At each such leg, there is a high potential collision possibility due to cars and trucks turning to the right into that lane and not observing the bicycle they are cutting off.

As I understand, those accidents tend to be serious.

Posted by: owl on October 1 2007 11:29 PM

The same goes for pedestrians, of course. Since there is no signal control, pedestrians will be faced with having to cross roads in an uncontrolled situation unless walkways with pedestrian controlled signals are installed.

Not that I would expect many pedestrians to use this. However, the bridge will accommodate both predestrians and bicycles and will be part of a river walkway system, I believe.

So, it would seem reasonable that if they are accommodated to cross the bridge, and a wider dedicated roadway is provided for them on the bridge, that they should also be safely accommodated once they get off the bridge and may wish to go left, right, or straight ahead up the hill.

Posted by: nunweilerg on October 1 2007 11:49 PM

I like the roundabout. It works well in many countries that have adopted it as the standard intersection design for high volume crossroads. Considering the old English towns and cities can have five and sometimes even six roads converging it works well for that too, although that is obviously very rare in this relatively new country. Truckers are more prone to slow down and not violate traffic lights and speed laws. There is a relatively new roundabout (traffic circle) near Agassiz that has succeeded in preventing heavy trucks from speeding through a rural residential area.

My only concern is for any increased grades and traction problems as vehicles have less traction when their front wheels are turned, going around in a circle, however, the upside is that normally you do not have to stop on a traffic circle that has low volume as the north side of the bridge would have. I can't see one or the other affecting cyclist safety that much. Neither trucks or cyclist stop at red lights the way they should. With a traffic circle traffic is generally forced to slow down.

Posted by: owl on October 2 2007 12:31 AM

From the report linked below.

"In 1990, four fatalities involving cyclists riding along a marked bike lane within the circulating roadway, were reported. All of the accidents occurred when the cyclists drove into exiting trucks. Since the occurrence of these accidents, considerations are being made to eliminate the bike lanes within the
circulating roadways."

bottom of second page .....

http://www.ite.org/traffic/documents/CCA99A33.pdf

Posted by: owl on October 2 2007 12:39 AM

Reading on I found this ....

"Also, of the 202 injury accidents reported, 85 accidents involved cyclists or moped drivers. The accidents involving
cyclists or moped drivers most often occurred due to a refusal to yield priority to the bicycle or moped, 50.6% (Alphand, et al., 1991)."

The other thng one has to be careful of is that the study compares the roundabout to two types of controlled intersections - stop sign and signalized intersetions:

"The geometric configuration of roundabouts, as compared to two-way stop control and signalized intersections, promote the reduction of severe accidents such as right angle, head-on and left turn head on."

I would like to see a comparison of signalized intersection to roundabout. I expect that to make a considerable difference in the statistics.

Posted by: owl on October 2 2007 1:01 AM

One more .... Here is a report on roundabout replacement of non-signalized controlled intersections which resulted in fewer accidents ... that seems reasonable to me.

Then it compares a roundabout which replaced a signalized intersection. Again, the result is what I would have expected ... an increase in the number of accidents (4 fold) but a reduction in the accident severity.

Before reading this I felt that roundabouts are more confusing to the average driver than signalized interesections. Here we have an example which supports that. Also, since all vehicles move generally in the same direction in a roundabout, the severity of accident is generally less. One repor tI read indicated that there was a 60% increase in rear end type accidents. Again, given the direction vehicles are travelling in the roundabout, that makes sense.

"The Towson roundabout is located in a highly urbanized setting and replaced two adjacent signalized intersections. It is oval in design, having an outer diameter that varies from 140 feet to 260 feet. It involves five major approaches. At the time of conversion, the total entering volume at the existing intersection averaged nearly 50,000 vehicles per day. Since its opening, the Towson roundabout has experienced a nearly fourfold increase in annual property damage accident (2.6/yr vs 10.0/yr). However, offsetting this increase, injury accidents have decreased by two-thirds (4.2/yr vs 1.5/yr). No fatal crash occurred in either the before or after period."

http://www.k-state.edu/roundabouts/news/MarylandRoundaboutSafetyExperience.html

Posted by: metalman on October 2 2007 8:02 AM

"So I put 'er into four wheel drift"
What a suit wearing cowboy is our mayor. He wants everyone to know he usedta bea stock car racer huh. Is that his only connection to the common man? From a businessman (Moffat) to a Librarian (Backhouse) to rapid Roy the stock car boy (Kinsley) an employee of a utility company.
I sure hope a business person runs for and is elected mayor this time. I just love the way he (Kinsley) says "I'll just go along with whatever you guys want to do" What a leader (not)
metalman.

Posted by: snappi on October 2 2007 8:47 AM

LOL metalman!! Good one! I personally don't care about the statistics on traffic circles, I don't like them at all. I think that the people of PG will figure it out and get used to it, but what about others coming in from out of town that have no idea what a traffic circle is? Yikes. This happened to me in Edmonton about 30 years ago, and I didn't have a clue how it worked,figured I was going to be killed for sure. Then I discovered a few years ago that they have one in Dawson Creek..a small town..I didn't like that one much better..I think there are better options.

Posted by: Harbinger on October 2 2007 11:28 AM

How about a lane exclusively for the four wheeled electric wheelchairs I see the old folks tooling around town on? The cops ignore them. If a kid on a trail bike was riding alongside one of them wheelchairs, do you suppose the old one and the young 'un would both get tickets for uninsured, unregistered, unlicensed motor vehicles? Go figure. I think the word is semantics.Our population is getting older. More of these devices on the road in the future. Do it now rather than after the fact. Traffic circle? Just after the bureaucratic circle we have at city hall. Gadzooks. Let's talk some more.

Posted by: Foo738 on October 2 2007 11:50 AM

I am wondering about accommodation for people with disabilities.

We have Rick Hansen as a consultant to UBC etc.

It would be a relief if Rick Hansen would be consulted.

It is a beautiful area connecting to Cottonwood Trail to McMillan Creek and should properly be open to all.

Posted by: Sh*tdisturber on October 2 2007 12:22 PM

....But that's the way we've always done it!

After spending time in another country, driving on the other side of the road where roundabouts are the norm, I quickly realized that they are faster, safer & more efficient
way to manage traffic flows. The only conflict that I can forsee would involve a truck turning left from the mills south onto the bridge. This would require a 270 degree travel of the circle, probably using both lanes. But the previous intersection also made this turn difficult resulting in frequent damage to the light poles.

People of PG need to accept that the way we've always done it, isn't always the best way

Posted by: silverpete on October 2 2007 4:27 PM

the mayor remembers going into a traffic circle?....I hope he remembers getting out!
Put her into 4X4 but this was july....

Posted by: Palopu on October 2 2007 9:21 PM

They have traffic circles in Dawson Creek, Parksville, White Rock, etc; This isnt about moving traffic.

Our buddies at City Hall are starting to see the cost of this bridge, and are trying to save a few bucks here and there.

The whole thing is a sham, and a disgrace, however that seems to be the criteria we need to build these assinine projects.

Its all about contracts and money. It has absolutley nothing to do with moving traffic. We will not have anymore traffic using the new bridge than we did the old.

The Citys traffic numbers are warped. I beleive that they are using the number 8000 Vehicles per day, which was the count when they closed the bridge, and they are now forcasting a 6000 vehicle increase for a total of 14000 vehicles per day. Guess what? If they used the number of vehicles using this bridge from say 2000 to 2004 they would have come up with a much higher number, and by default a lower increase for the new bridge.

Trucks from the Pulp Mills using the Cameron St. Bridge have been reduced by approx 30 trucks per day because they no longer load pulp on first avenue. This in itself is a reduction of roughtly 20,000 trucks loaded and empty that are gone. If the pulp mills load Containers to the CN Ter;minal on 1st Avenue then you would get these trucks back, however that would only getjyou back to where you were in 2000 to 2003/4

Keep you eye on this one is gonna be a doozer.

Posted by: Chadermando on October 2 2007 9:50 PM

I think a b-train would navigate a circle tour alright, but I'm not so sure about those 53 footers with all their off tracking? The thing about turning with a 53 foot trailer is that it leaves a spot that looks open for a go, but then closes up quickly and could easily run over anything not aware of the danger. Its why most professional drivers close up to the curb a bit before swinging wide to close the hole from eager four wheelers. In a circle tour you can't close the gap before hand, but still have the side track to deal with.

I like the circle intersection idea for residential areas, but I don't think its good for a heavy industrial setting with 20+ b-trains an hour. Add to that rush hour traffic and its not a great mix IMO.

I see two possible reasons for the circle intersection. First of all its about the direct no lights access between the North Nechako-Hart neighbourhoods and the downtown.

Second reasons is I think the city bridge guys are thinking lets not have b-trains lined up stopped on one side of a bridge every time you have a red light for through traffic on Pulp Mill Road, when the bridge with loop sided weight is built on pilings for centered single lane traffic. We might get concrete fatigue like they do in Quebec and end up with a bridge in the river....

Posted by: YamaDooPolCat on October 2 2007 10:33 PM

2.5 meter wide cycle lane? We could use that much for small cars traffic if the bridge gets lots of traffic.

Posted by: metalman on October 3 2007 8:12 AM

Traffic circles, or roundabouts, as the British call them, are a very effective means of keeping the traffic flowing. As mentioned above by S-disturbeer, once you get used to them, they are in fact BRILLIANT! If this one needs to be wider to accomodate the long trailers, so be it. Just think about it for a while, and maybe go practice on the one at John Majors cash machine. Someone mentioned that they have one there, so go and try it! Another traffic light will only make things worse! At this stage of our development we need to find ways to keep traffic moving, not create more places for traffic to stop. I guess the signalled intersection is the cheapest to install, but that is such short term thinking. Think big, councillors
Yes to roundabouts!
metalman.

Posted by: Buzz on October 3 2007 12:42 PM

Palopu: All of your "research" doesn't negate the face that the traffic situation is 10X worse since the bridge has been closed, and the congestion every morning at 5th & the ByPass cannot be denied. When it snows, the line ups get pretty ridiculous (by PG standards at least...still pretty tame compared to bigger cities I suppose) As for traffic circles, they're great - I've used them tons of times in other countries and other cities.

Posted by: diplomat on October 4 2007 11:36 AM

Palopu: "We will not have anymore traffic using the new bridge than we did the old."

This whole thing is not about *more* or *less* traffic, it is about *where* the traffic is occurring.

The die has been cast over many objections and because of the apathy of the public:

The project is going ahead!

A traffic circle is a good idea! Let's hope that the majority of P.G. drivers who are oblivious of the fact that vehicles come with an option to use directional lights will learn to locate and to use them, because in a roundabout it is of vital importance to signal one's intention to change lanes to the other drivers!

There will be a rash of fender benders!