Cardiff Corner will get traffic lights next year, the province has announced – a temporary traffic fix that might be in place for up to seven years.
Transportation Minister Ric McIver and Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock MLA Maureen Kubinec announced late Oct. 19 that the province would spend $2 million next year to add traffic lights to the intersection of Cardiff Road and Highway 2 south of Morinville.
Cardiff Corner is the gateway to Morinville's industrial park and a notorious place for collisions – there have been about eight per year there since 2000, half of which lead to injuries, the province says.
Traffic at the site has increased about 30 per cent in the last decade, the province reports.
The province said in 2011 that it would build an overpass at this site to fix its traffic problems, but put that $38 million project on ice last March, removing it from its three-year capital plan.
Kubinec said she has been lobbying the minister on this matter ever since.
"We've got a safety issue here. Let's try to find a temporary but safe solution for that corner," she said.
The plan now is to put traffic signals on all sides of the Cardiff Corner intersection, said Parker Hogan, McIver's press secretary.
The speed limit on Highway 2 near the intersection will also be reduced from 100 kilometres per hour to 80.
"There will be some flashing lights to alert people," Hogan said.
The lights should cut collisions at the site by 44 per cent, based on results from similar intersections in Alberta, Hogan said.
These lights are a temporary solution that could be there for "a significant number of years," Hogan said.
Morinville Mayor Lisa Holmes said she had been told that the lights could be around for five to seven years.
"It will quickly address the safety concerns, which is what we've been asking for."
Still, she said she hopes to learn some specifics about the lights soon – she hasn't even seen a picture of them yet.
"What does it mean for noise? What does it mean for traffic congestion?"
Temporary solution?
Cardiff Corner is dangerous for drivers headed south from Morinville to St. Albert, as they have to dash across two lanes of oncoming traffic moving at 100 kilometres an hour – traffic they often can't see due to cars turning right off the highway.
Holmes said she and then-mayor Paul Krauskopf met with the province in May to discuss these lights, as well as other options such as moving roads or turning lanes. A feasibility study pegged the lights as the best option, as the others would interfere with a future overpass.
She said she and Sturgeon County Mayor Tom Flynn learned about the lights at a joint meeting with Kubinec and McIver on Oct. 18.
This is a bit of a Band-Aid solution, Flynn said, but it should make the corner safer for residents and businesses like Champion Petfoods (which sends about 15 semi-trucks through there a day).
"They (the province) do recognize that sometime in the near future, five to seven years, there's going to be too much traffic to have lights there," he said. "They're still looking toward that same interchange."
Holmes said she would continue to press the province to build an overpass at Cardiff, and hoped to get some indication of when the traffic at the corner would be enough to trigger construction.
"With our growth rates, we may be looking at three years rather than five," she said.
The overpass is held up in part because of a court case that's tied up some of the land needed for it, Kubinec said.
She said she wasn't sure what effect the lights would have on local traffic.
"What I do know for sure is that it will be safer than it is currently."
Expect design work for the lights to be done before Christmas, Kubinec said, with the lights ready by next summer.
