By Mark Squibb
The City of Mount Pearl is undertaking an upgrade of the Commonwealth and T’Railway intersection, and perhaps no one is happier with the news than councillor Bill Antle, who has advocated for years for a proper crossing there.
“I was ecstatic,” said Antle. “Because if someone was killed here, how bad would we feel because we never did anything to fix it?”
The City will install a user-activated pedestrian signal, realign the trail for clearer sightlines, install a raised island on Commonwealth Avenue, and make the Glendale Avenue and Commonwealth Avenue intersection a right-turn-only lane. Because of the raised island, folks will also no longer be able to turn left onto Glendale Avenue from Commonwealth Avenue.
The question of a T’Railway crossing at Commonwealth has proved contentious over the years for a number of reasons.
Currently, the City encourages people using the T’Railway to walk up Commonwealth and use the dedicated crosswalk at the Park Avenue and Ruth Avenue intersection rather than cross Commonwealth. According to City data, however, more than half of T’Rrailway users chance crossing Commonwealth unassisted rather than use the dedicated crosswalk further up the road. (Anecdotally, in the 30 minutes a Shoreline reporter and Antle sat on a bench near the crossing one Monday afternoon, perhaps a dozen people crossed the road, and only one walked up Commonwealth to the dedicated crosswalk.)
Antle, however, argued that the steep grade and narrow sidewalks of Commonwealth Avenue are not conducive to bikers or people with mobility challenges.
In times past the Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) had actually recommended against installing a T’Railway crossing along Commonwealth, citing traffic speeds and proximity to the Commonwealth, Ruth, and Park Avenue intersection.
“My first question when I got on council was, ‘When are we going to fix this crosswalk?’” said Antle. “And all I heard was reasons why we can’t. ‘We can’t put it here because the TAC manual says we don’t have the right distance,’ or we don’t have this or we’ don’t have that. But guess what? We do. We’ve had studies done on this, and we just had one done by Harbourside (Consultants), and we do have a line of sight, and we do have those pedestrian activated crosswalk lights (at Commonwealth.)”
Adding to the confusion are folks trying to merge onto Commonwealth from the Mount Pearl Plaza parking lot and a bus stop at the mouth of the T’Railway.
“This was not an easy fix,” allowed Antle. “There are so many complications with this trail.”
Mayor Dave Aker said the solution will be a good fix, but allowed the City may revisit it in the future when work is undertaken to replace the bridge just a couple of minutes walk up the road.
“I don’t look at it as an interim measure, but it’s something we can revisit,” said Aker. “What we’re finding is that there is some traffic there, and it’s a little bit unsafe for pedestrians, but that peak in pedestrian traffic is not throughout the entire day and it’s rarely at the time of peak traffic, such as the commute in the morning…. Some of the solutions we looked at, like putting a bridge (over Commonwealth) were going to cost in the millions of dollars. If there was consistent pedestrian and bicycle traffic going across, I think we could justify it. But at the end of the day, I think the glove is fitting the situation quite perfectly. How long that intersection will be there will depend on how long the bridge will be there. When the bride is rebuilt, reconfiguration of the crossing may take place at that time. But I think we’re in for the long haul. We wouldn’t be spending $650,000 to throw it out in three years time.”
As the tender has not yet been awarded, the City could not give an exact cost of the project.
Construction is expected to start later this summer, and the new crosswalk is scheduled to open in the fall.
