The provincial government’s lacklustre response to safety concerns about Ninth Avenue Northwest and Highway 1 frustrates the mayor, who believes action must happen to prevent major collisions or deaths.
City hall, city council, residents and business owners along the North Service Road have made it clear to the Ministry of Highways and the highways minister that they want to see vehicle-actuated traffic lights installed there to ease traffic flows, Mayor Clive Tolley said during a media scrum after the most recent regular council meeting.
Such traffic lights would remain constantly green for highway motorists until vehicles approach the intersection from Ninth Avenue Northwest or the North Service Road.
When the province told the municipality that it would study traffic lights as part of a comprehensive corridor study, city hall and council wrote a “very strongly worded letter” because both feel very strongly about this issue, he continued.
“There’s been too many accidents at that intersection and we want something done about it now,” Tolley stated.
The ministry can include that temporary solution in the overall study, while it can also look at enhancements — more traffic lights — to address Highway 1 and Thatcher Drive East, he added.
Tolley raised similar concerns during the recent police board meeting.
Another frustration the city faces is previous mayors have written letters to the ministry over the decades about this same issue to no result, Tolley said. He remembers three friends involved in a car collision at Ninth Avenue Northwest and Highway 1 in the 1960s, with one killed and two severely injured.
Since then, many mayors and councils have written letters and raised the idea of installing traffic lights at that corner.
“… we just want the government to re-focus on this problem and not just study it, but also take some action,” he said. “… We in Saskatchewan don’t have traffic lights on the Trans-Canada Highway. They do in Manitoba and Alberta, and we don’t understand why Moose Jaw can’t have traffic lights for the safety of our citizens.”
Tolley recalled his most recent experience in that area, noting five vehicles in the intersection simultaneously, with two semis pulling trailers.
“It was a recipe for disaster. It was actually just the good driving of one or two of the drivers to avoid an accident,” he added.
City manager Jim Puffalt agreed with the mayor that that intersection was unsafe and dangerous, noting he wanted to pull over recently because of how congested the intersection was.
Highway 1 is a busy economic corridor for Moose Jaw because of activities with Brandt Industries, Donald’s Fine Foods and the agri-food industrial park, he continued. Those places will generate more traffic flows in the future — for example, bringing in old sows and hauling out new trailers — and make vehicle congestion even worse.
“I think it’s important that we get the province to listen — especially on that intersection — to give us a hand with that and make it safer because it’s just going to get worse,” Puffalt said.
The intersection of Highway 1 and Thatcher Drive East is even busier than the other intersection — 10,000 vehicles per day versus 7,000 — and will also become worse as businesses develop in that area, he added. While he appreciated the ministry performing its corridor study along Highway 1, he thought it was time to act because the issue has been ongoing for nearly 50 years.
The next regular council meeting is Monday, Nov. 14.
