Editor:
Returning from Calgary the other day, traffic on Bow Valley Trail going west was backed up all the way to NAPA Automotive. It took three traffic light cycles to finally make it into downtown. I also noticed that the signal light timing and cycles had been fiddled around with recently, neither making it better nor worse, just different. May this have been the proverbial lipstick on a pig, trying to make it look better than it is?
Travelling east on Bow Valley Trail and making a left turn up Benchlands Trail, the green phase at times is not even long enough to empty the turn lane. On the other hand, all cars have left another lane and the lights are still green. Why not have contact loops counting the vehicles entering a lane and leaving a lane. When all vehicles have left change to red giving way to other directions. The intersection is a nightmare, no ifs, no buts.
The whole mess needs a review from the ground up. Early on I suggested a roundabout with by-pass lanes. Engineering advised that this was not an option because a train crossing would shut down traffic. Well, a train will shut down traffic regardless of the intersection design.
The way to start would be with computer simulations. The proverbial million spent on such simulations will save a billion in concrete and asphalt. Should have been done from the outset as I had suggested.
By now, there should be sufficient real-time video recordings to feed meaningful computer models. Maybe a roundabout supported by traffic lights in real-time should be considered. Or, flexible traffic light cycles and different cycles for different scenarios, weekend, day, night, etc.
The most important criteria, however, should be guided by civil engineering professor Wesley Marshall, who argues that “... engineering approaches are driven more by ideology and inertia than logic or assessments of what works”.
Well said.
Dieter Remppel,
Canmore
