I go away for a week all the while hoping not to catch the H1N1 virus while traveling and I arrive home only to find out that there's another virus on the go and some of our politicians have caught this new "roundabout" bug... as promised in last night’s late blog post I got up early today and took a picture from my 8th floor hotel room looking over the "roundabout" into the near empty convention centre in Levis, Quebec.... now don't get me wrong as I'm not fully against roundabouts when they make "Practical" sense something which Minister MacKinley appears to have a strong political suit in... but it's my guess that when he gets the actually construction cost numbers to build an efficient one on Riverside Drive that he may very well abandon any such notion.... as for my stance against the one at Mount Edward Road I'm still believe that any safety issues there can be fixed with some lane widening at about a fifth of the cost of a roundabout... they spent a year talking about a proposed one at the Peter Pan and when the costs came in at about $6,000,000 they moved to a more practical improvement at $2,000,000 which appears to be working fine... in this economy our elected officials should always consider the economics before they make their final decisions and I'm hoping that's what they'll do here otherwise I'll be chasing down Ronnie too.... quite a waste of money in Levis but at least they don't have to buy a Christmas tree....2 more roundabouts considered for Charlottetown
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
CBC News
Charlottetown's Riverside Drive could include two roundabouts as part of a major upgrade, says Transportation Minister Ron MacKinley.
Charlottetown currently has no roundabouts, though there is one planned.
MacKinley said some of the plans for Riverside Drive, a section of the Charlottetown bypass that runs from the Hillsborough Bridge to St. Peter's Road, are already set. It will be widened to four lanes with a berm down the middle.
"This is a very busy section of highway," MacKinley told CBC News Monday.
"There's 24,000 cars going by here a day and sometimes there's more in the summer."
Getting on Riverside Drive can be difficult, particularly at Exhibition Drive and by the energy-from-waste plant. Typically P.E.I. has used traffic lights at locations such as this, but MacKinley said putting two traffic lights so close together doesn't make sense.
"Islanders don't like signals. They're complaining to me about the bypass having too many signals, so we are exploring the idea of roundabouts," he said.
"[I] saw a lot of them when I was in California, saw them when I was in Ireland before, and we are looking at that possibility to see how it's going to work."
MacKinley said roundabouts are safer than intersections because the cars aren't going as fast if there is a collision.
The work on Riverside Drive is expected to begin this spring, with or without the roundabouts. The cost of the $6-million-plus project is being shared by the federal and provincial governments.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
CBC News
Charlottetown's Riverside Drive could include two roundabouts as part of a major upgrade, says Transportation Minister Ron MacKinley.
Charlottetown currently has no roundabouts, though there is one planned.
MacKinley said some of the plans for Riverside Drive, a section of the Charlottetown bypass that runs from the Hillsborough Bridge to St. Peter's Road, are already set. It will be widened to four lanes with a berm down the middle.
"This is a very busy section of highway," MacKinley told CBC News Monday.
"There's 24,000 cars going by here a day and sometimes there's more in the summer."
Getting on Riverside Drive can be difficult, particularly at Exhibition Drive and by the energy-from-waste plant. Typically P.E.I. has used traffic lights at locations such as this, but MacKinley said putting two traffic lights so close together doesn't make sense.
"Islanders don't like signals. They're complaining to me about the bypass having too many signals, so we are exploring the idea of roundabouts," he said.
"[I] saw a lot of them when I was in California, saw them when I was in Ireland before, and we are looking at that possibility to see how it's going to work."
MacKinley said roundabouts are safer than intersections because the cars aren't going as fast if there is a collision.
The work on Riverside Drive is expected to begin this spring, with or without the roundabouts. The cost of the $6-million-plus project is being shared by the federal and provincial governments.
3 comments:
A more interesting question is why aren't you more concerned about the "...nearly empty convention centre..." that you were in?
Tim I see alot of the roundabouts in Europe have statues at the centre of them depicting local heroes and events. Any word yet on who or what will be adorning the Allen Street roundabout.
I'm sure Coun. Tweel will be putting his name forward for a statue in the middle of the "action corner"
lol
Post a Comment