Riverside Drive plans unveiled
The Guardian
Plans for Riverside Drive in Charlottetown include four lanes, two modern roundabouts, a median along the whole length, no bicycles and uncertainly about a sidewalk, a public meeting heard Tuesday.
The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal hosted the open meeting in Charlottetown to show plans for the proposed $5 million project.
Funding will be shared with the federal government with the hope that ground will be broken in May with work completed by Dec. 31 this year.
Riverside Drive runs from the west end of the Hillsborough Bridge along the water’s edge to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. It is part of the perimeter highway.
From the Sears intersection to the QEH the perimeter highway is now four lanes. This next phase completes that pattern to the bridge, says the department.
It decided that circular intersections are the best and safest option for roads that intersect Riverside Drive. The department does not like the term rotary intersection.
“A modern roundabout is different from a rotary,” said Darrell Evans with the provincial department.
These roundabouts will be two lanes and be some 60 meters in diameter, compared with the smaller roundabout in Summerside.
A roundabout reduces the opportunities for collision compared to a traffic-lighted intersection, said Evans. Any accidents that do happen are much less severe on a roundabout compared to traffic-light intersections, he said.
The province will purchase land wide enough to allow for sidewalks and it will drop the curb where pedestrian crossings are planned, but the city will be responsible for installing sidewalks, the meeting was told.
Charlottetown City Councillors Mitchell Tweel, Danny Redmond and Melissa Hilton were at the meeting but said funding for this sidewalk project is a matter for upcoming discussion at council.
A source at the meeting who asked not to be named said a sidewalk project for Riverside drive would likely cost about $250,000 and that federal programs are either closed or not available for projects that begin this summer.
No one at the meeting could say why the city was not running parallel applications for federal sidewalk funding to match the timeline of the Riverside Drive upgrade.
Redmond said the sidewalk should go ahead even without federal help. He and the other city councillors again stressed that the city’s budget process is still underway and Redmond is confident money for the sidewalk will be found.
“I agree 100 percent with the city councillors that the sidewalk is a great idea,” said cabinet minister Richard Brown, MLA for part of the Riverside Drive area. “I’m willing to work with the city in any way I can.”
Bicycling will not be in the picture for the road.
“Typically we don’t think cyclists should navigate roundabouts,” said Evans.
Not welcome on the four-lane road and not permitted on sidewalks, no other provisions for cyclists have been made.
“Unfortunately we are somewhat constrained in terms of land,” said Evans.
For businesses the roundabout offers an option not available with traffic lights.
It would not be safe for cars to try and turn left across two or three lanes of traffic into or out of a business, said Evans.
With a roundabout, vehicles can go past the destination, travel around the full circle of the next roundabout to end up driving on the opposite side of the median with a safe right turn into the business.
The roundabouts are now planned for just a bit south of the present intersection with Exhibition Drive, and a new configuration by the waste plant.
Garfield will be closed off but Walker Drive will be extended between the medial clinic and the liquor commission warehouse. Walker drive extension will become the new intersection wit Riverside Drive, lined up with the entrance to the waste plant.
