Groat Road: 'We have a complete BLANK show going on'
Vital traffic route normally handles 42,500 vehicles on the average weekday
As crews continue to assemble and prepare a massive crane at the Groat Road work-site, city traffic engineers are scrambling to come up with plans to move west-end traffic across the river and in and out of downtown.
Gord Cebryk, the city’s transportation manager, said no single solution will fix problems created by the closure of one of the city’s busiest commuter roads.
“I don’t think there’s going to be one answer,” Cebryk said. “It’s probably going to be multiple answers as we progress. Because things are going to change. We’re hoping we can get the girder situation resolved as quickly as possible, and that will deal with one phase.”
Those girders on the 102nd Avenue bridge have caused headaches and traffic jams since early Monday, when four of them buckled and threw one of the city’s major construction projects into chaos.
On Wednesday, the city announced changes to signal lights, parking bans and bus routes to try to ease the congestion on alternate traffic routes.
Last year, Groat Road handled 42,500 vehicles during the average weekday, Cebryk said. The road normally handles 4,000 cars and trucks during morning rush hour, and 4,300 every afternoon.
Now all those drivers must find other ways to get where they’re going.
The worst congestion, Cebryk said, happens between 142nd Street and 124th Street, where drivers face delays of up to 10 minutes.
Jim Syskakis, who lives in Grovenor near 102nd Avenue, summed things up this way: “There’s a lot of traffic, that’s all I can say. We used to see delays at rush hour, and now we’re seeing delays all day long. Especially as you approach Stony Plain towards 124th Street."
Short-term solutions?
Scott McKeen, city councillor for the area around Groat Road, suggested the city must look for simple, short-term solutions. One idea he proposed would see orange traffic cones placed on 104th Avenue to create three eastbound lanes in the morning and three westbound lanes in the afternoon. Extra police might have to be used to direct traffic, he said, a cost the city would shoulder.
Cebryk said the city will look at that option and any others that might help.
“We have a complete and total ‘BLANK’ show going on here,” McKeen said. “I’m not taking blame for the girders. I don’t think the city should take blame for the girders. We don’t know if that’s the case. I just mean that this has happened on our watch.
“We’re hearing it from everybody. Nobody’s happy. The businesses aren’t happy, the commuters aren’t happy.”
McKeen said he understands the anger directed at the city. Yet, at the same time, he said, people have to realize that things sometimes go wrong.
“What I really deplore though, is this idea that this is incompetence,” he said. “I think we have really good people working for us.”
As ward councillor for the area, McKeen vowed to work to help local businesses.