Bonnyville town council is exploring eliminating left hand turns at major intersections to help reduce traffic buildups. With the increase of population the town has seen an increase in traffic and a higher-than-average number of accidents. Many of the buildups and accidents can be attributed to left-hand turns.
Councillors formed a committee in mid-March to explore different options to resolve this issue. The committee was faced with a few obstacles; money, size of intersections, and time. It was determined not only would it cost the town too much money to change the lights to include a left turn timed indicator, much like the one on the intersection of Highway 28 & 41 (Player’s Lounge corner). The roads within town also poised issues because many aren’t wide enough to include left lanes, for example the intersection of 46th street and 50th avenue (Sobey’s corner). Time was also a problem, as the town needed to resolve the buildups and accidents as soon as possible and installing lights and widening roadways were just too time consuming.
Mayor Gene Sobolewski explains the town has decided to “reduce and eliminate left turns on congested intersections, such as Sobey’s corner, the bank, A&W, and 41”. Mayor Sobolewski believe that this will drastically help reduce traffic buildups and reduce the number of accidents in the town.
Mayor Sobolewski goes on to say… “APRIL FOOLS!”