A three-week long pilot project to ease congestion on the Summit Connector will essentially become permanent by the end of this month.
It gave North Shore bound vehicles heading from the Sahali area a free flow lane to head onto the Overlanders Bridge, while moving all traffic heading across the Thompson River from West Victoria Street to the existing free flow lane.
“The two things that we were to observe would be obviously the merging how that would work for the traffic heading westbound from downtown, and it seems like that is under control,” Marvin Kwiatkowski, the City’s Development, Engineering and Sustainability Director, told NL News.
“The other of course would be the movement on the on-ramp [from the Sahali area] where we had the signal. With that gone, the traffic did flow nicely onto the on-ramp. What we were looking at there would be any sort of concerns as well with some of the access adjacent to those businesses.”
Speaking on NL Newsday, Kwiatkowski says the feedback gathered as part of the pilot has been mostly favourable.
“Couple of the businesses that are there, they did say that [the changes are] a little bit tricky,” he said. “One of the major concerns which was always the case was the large transport trucks that get in and out of those businesses. That is always a concern, it will always will be a concern. It is not the best location for large trucks.”
The pilot began on April 4 and was due to run until April 22. But drivers will have noticed that the temporary barriers installed last month are still in place with Kwiatkowski noting those barriers will be made somewhat permanent in the next couple of weeks.
“Permanent to me would be a full construction of concrete curb and gutter, and drainage work, so spending significant dollars,” he said. “What we could look at is more of an interim which would be extending the no post barriers, the concrete barriers, and that sort of thing, having permanent signage up, permanent pavement markings.”
“We would look at doing that at the end of this month or into early June.”
