Commuters should stay clear of St. Albert Trail starting next month, say planners — roadwork is about to turn it into one long construction zone.
City of Edmonton staff presented plans to renovate St. Albert Trail between 137th Avenue and 118th Avenue at an open house at Dovercourt Elementary School this week. The renovations include roadwork, additional turning lanes, and an expanded bridge over Yellowhead Trail.
This will turn everything from the Cineplex on the Trail to the traffic circle into a construction zone, notes Byron Nicholson, a director with the City of Edmonton's road design department, one that could last for the rest of the year. "We will encourage people to look for alternate routes," he says.
Smoother road, bigger bridge
The changes are part of a $20-million renovation to the Trail that started in 2008, Nicholson says.
Crews will start this round of renos by widening the bridge over the Yellowhead. The bridge has two lanes going either direction, notes arterial paving construction supervisor Rob Barnes, but they tend to get backlogged with cars turning onto the Yellowhead. "The southbound turn left is just awful." It also has narrow sidewalks on either side.
In March, crews will work to widen the bridge to accommodate a bigger sidewalk and more lanes. The tiny sidewalks will be replaced with a single 2.5-metre wide path on the west side of the bridge. Northbound commuters will get an additional lane to go into St. Albert, while southbound ones will get an additional left-hand turn lane onto the Yellowhead.
Crews will keep two lanes open in either direction throughout construction, Barnes continues, but northbound commuters will not be able to turn left onto the Yellowhead. Those commuters should use 149th Street or 156th Street instead.
By May, crews will get to work on the rest of the road, reducing the Trail to two lanes in either direction from three during construction. The Trail will be resurfaced and repainted, Barnes says, and the gutters, curbs and median restored. Power lines will be buried and streetlights will be replaced.
"The most disruptive piece will be the traffic circle," Barnes says, referring to the intersection of the Trail and 118th Avenue. The circle technically lets two lanes of traffic flow north and south, he says, but is often clogged by cars turning onto 118th Avenue. Crews will add dedicated turning lanes to compensate.
The city's traffic department has yet to determine how this will affect traffic flow, Barnes says, but it should fix those left-turn traffic jams when it's done. "Short-term pain for long-term gain."
Commuters, buses affected
Nicholson urged drivers to slow down during construction. "It is a construction zone," he says, which means the speed limit is 50 km/h all the time. Drivers face doubled fines if they speed while workers are on site.
Vern Fedorak of St. Albert says he doesn't think he'll change his commute due to the construction. "If it backs up real bad, I'm not fussy about the other routes as they're kind of out of the way and won't be any faster."
Colleen Duplessis of Edmonton was disappointed by the renovations. "We were really hoping they'd take the traffic circle out," she says, as it causes frequent delays. She also notes that while the current east-side walkway over the Yellowhead links to a sidewalk headed south, the future west-side one will not. "They're going on the wrong side. It goes to nowhere."
Construction delays will likely mean changes to bus routes going to and from Edmonton, says Bob McDonald of St. Albert Transit. "We'll stay on the Trail as long as we can, [but] we are seriously looking at other options to try and maintain schedules." Any changes would be announced on the city's transit website.
Crews plan to wrap up construction by December, Nicholson says. For details, contact Jason Woo at [email protected].
