As of this morning, construction has begun on the redirection of Queen St. The City posted their plans online so they can be reviewed by people like me. The idea is to make access in and out of the new parking garage easier. Unfortunately, this has some drawbacks and will cause complications in other situations.

Just a reminder that I’m not claiming to be a traffic engineer, nor am I blaming the employees of the city as they are only doing what they’ve been told. I also can’t draw very well.

The first issue is where it goes from 2-way to 1 way. Unlike Queen St. at Northumberland, there will be no concrete barrier or curb to stop traffic from continuing the wrong way. There will just be signs. We all know that with today’s distracted drivers, we’ll get a few of them heading up the wrong way.

The other big issue relates to the new left-turn lane on Regent St. for traffic heading South. To allow for this, the right-turn lane will be now shared with the only straight-ahead lane. The problem is that the straight-ahead traffic will be blocked by right-turning traffic waiting for pedestrians. This will cause drivers to swerve into the left-turn lane in order to go around the cars waiting to turn right and will probably cause accidents. During the morning rush-hour, there are quite a few pedestrians at that crosswalk. The new parking garage will probably increase the number of them.

Another problem are the double-parked delivery trucks on Queen St. that service the restaurants on that block. Will they block the new lane, or will the drivers have to cross a lane of traffic to deliver their goods?

The biggest problem is that all of this new traffic is purely speculation. They are going ahead and spending $1.2 million without any hard data to support it. I’m not going to be closed minded to making these changes in the future, as long as there is sufficient data to show they are warranted.

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Is it open yet?
Yes.

Where is it?
Top of Regent St. on the UNB Woodlot.

UNB woodlot? Isn’t that environmentally sensitive wetland?
No. Other parts of the woodlot are, but not the area where the Costco is going.

What’s the best way to get there?
You should avoid the Regent/Prospect intersection if possible. If you live in the city, you won’t have much choice, but if you come from away, you can easily avoid it.

From Woodstock and further places North-West, don’t turn off at the Fredericton exit (Hwy 8), keep going on TCH#2 towards Moncton, and take exit 285 (Hwy 101). At the end of the ramp, turn left, drive through the woods and Costco will be on your right.
From Oromocto and further places South-East, don’t turn off at the Fredericton exit (Hwy 7), keep going on TCH#2 towards Edmundston and take exit 285B (Hwy 101N). At the end of the ramp, turn right, drive through the woods and Costco will be on your right.

Will it kill other businesses in Fredericton?
Probably not. Downtown businesses won’t be affected as they won’t be directly competing with it. Some stores in the malls may have some difficulty if they can’t compete on price. However, the Costco will bring in more people from farther outside the city who will presumably go to other stores as well.

When is it open?
You should really check the Official Web site, however:

• M-F 10:00am – 8:30pm
• Sat. 9:30am – 6:00pm
• Sun. 12:00pm – 5:00pm

When is the gas bar open?

• I’ll have to get back to you on that, I heard it was one hour earlier and later than store hours.

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Much of the rest of the world has come to love roundabouts. Now, councillor Mike O’Brien is proposing that Fredericton have some too.

Roundabouts can be installed at almost any intersection, but they really shine in the following situations:

• intersections where the roads don’t all line up at 90 degree intersections
• intersections with 5 or more roads going into it
• intersections where a lot of the drivers would be making a left turn

Many opponents claim that they are less safe than traditional intersections, but that isn’t actually true.

• The average speed of a roundabout is typically 25 km/h
• You won’t get head-on or t-bone accidents
• Pedestrians are actually safer because they don’t have to worry about turning traffic and they only have to look one way before crossing
• Cyclists have the option of using the crosswalks or entering the circle as regular traffic (but without a bike lane in the circle)

The two biggest hurdles will be:

• Proper design: A badly designed roundabout will cause more accidents and drivers will fear them. An example of a badly designed roundabout is the one on Miramichi/Sobeys/Esso in Oromocto.
• Education.  The CBC interview had the lead traffic engineer stress the importance of driver education. Unfortunately, I don’t see this happening as the “powers that be” don’t seem to have a problem with a large percentage of the local population not knowing how to merge. It will be up to the other drivers to honk at the ones who are doing it wrong. The Government of PEI did quite well on driver education, including a cute little Flash animation:

Hopefully Fredericton City Council won’t resist change and we’ll get to see some roundabouts fairly soon. Hopefully the first one will go at Waterloo/Beaverbrook/Future UNB Entrance/Forest Hill/Lincoln.

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1. The Coggswell Interchange

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At some point in the 1960s, Halifax decided that it wanted an expressway running through their downtown (like Toronto’s Gardiner). Once the weed wore off, they cancelled the plan, neglecting the fact that they already started building it. Did they tear down the partially completed section? Nope, they just left it there and rearranged some of the lanes so it would kind of work with what’s already there. To this day, it carries little traffic, confuses tourists and costs a lot to maintain.

2. 101/102/7 interchange

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This one fails on several levels. Despite connecting two major highways 101/102, the clover-leaf style ramps have very tight turns that require you to slow down to 30 km/h in order to navigate them. You then have very little ramp space to get up to speed to merge onto the other highway.

If you’re on highway 33, this intersection connects with the 101, but not the 102. This is probably an intentional design to make it inconvenient for people from the north end of Dartmouth to avoid going over one of the bridges and paying the toll.

3. Yield signs for everything

Rather than having a separate sign to yield, merge, or continue in your own lane, they use yield signs for all three. If you’re unfamiliar with the area, you have to guess what you’re actually supposed to do.  If you’re wrong, you’ll either get rear-ended or drive into the side of another car.

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