Arterial Roadway Upgrades
Winterburn Road and Webber Greens Drive. For those living in the west end, you know those roads to be some of the worst when it comes to congestion, particularly during the afternoon. The congestion on Winterburn Road has also extended to the intersection of 231st Street and Stony Plain Road where traffic waiting to turn south onto 231st Street now backs up onto the highway. This is unsafe and unacceptable.
While there have been a lot of great investments made west of the Henday over the years, these roads have been a major issue for everyone. During the most recent budget deliberations in December, I put forward a motion to approve some funding that would let us start to tackle roadway upgrades across the city. As that motion was not approved, I put forward a different motion today which was approved unanimously by council. Here is that motion:
“That Administration:
Provide a report with an assessment of arterial roadway/intersection improvements in developing areas that are City responsibility to identify top locations based on operational and strategic considerations.
Due Date: October 31, 2023, Urban Planning Committee
Provide a memo identifying any work planned in 2023 for the completion of vehicular infrastructure that is the responsibility of the City and include actions planned from a safety and/or capacity perspective.”
This two part motion should provide us with a clear path forward to approving funding to address serious roadway issues across the city like what we currently have on Winterburn Road and Webber Greens Drive.
The second part of the motion is straightforward. It’s meant to provide council with any safety and/or capacity improvements on roads that are City responsibility to upgrade. Realistically, I believe with the information about the budget debate listed above, I don’t expect any projects to be listed in that memo.
That’s why the first part of the motion is so important. I see this motion similar to an inquiry I made years ago that dealt with crosswalks. That inquiry provided us with a clear understanding of how many crosswalks needed to be installed or upgraded and how long it would take us based on the current budget. My guess is that we have a similar issue to roadway upgrades as we did for crosswalks and if that is the case, we can take action sooner rather than later.
So the primary question you likely all have is when will this finally be addressed? While I can’t provide a firm timeline yet, my expectation is that when this report comes back later this year, it will provide the necessary information so that council can approve funding to address roadway upgrades like Webber Greens Drive, Winterburn Road, and other locations across the city starting in 2024.
It’s taken too long for these areas to be addressed and I take full responsibility for that. While I’ve made different motions over the years to advance this work, that hasn’t helped us get to the desired outcome. Although I’m glad the exit ramp off Stony Plain Road to Winterburn Road was widened to reduce some issues, it still takes too long for people to get home in the afternoon and the safety issues at 231st Street/Stony Plain Road are significant.
When this report comes back, I will share the information with everyone and it might be good to have some representation at the meeting so that all of council can hear from residents in the area about how this is impacting your lives. In the meantime, if anyone has a dashcam or video footage that you can share with me that shows the delays and the safety issues, that would be very helpful in advance of the meeting. Please feel free to send any video footage to andrew.knack@edmonton.ca.
