Winterburn Road and Webber Greens Drive Update (October 2022)

Winterburn Road and Webber Greens Drive Update (October 2022)

Besides being asked about when the Lewis Farms Recreation Centre/Library and the Valley Line West LRT will start construction (both are now under construction) the most frequent question I would receive from residents west of the Henday (ex: Lewis Estates Community League, Secord Community League, Edmonton Rosenthal Community League, and Westview Village Community Association) is when we can expect improvements on Winterburn Road and Webber Greens Drive.

First, I’ll provide some context just to catch everyone up in case you don’t know the history. If you read my post from January, you can skip past the quoted section below since it’s the same information.

“The requirement to widen Winterburn Road and Webber Greens drive falls to the City. While newer developments now require the developer to build a four lane arterial road over time, that was not the case when the Lewis Estates Area Structure Plan was approved back in 1988. In fact, this change didn’t occur until the mid to late 2000s which is frustrating but it was the reality of the time. This has created infrastructure deficits across many communities built outside the Henday.

For those in the Big Lake Community League, this same concern wouldn’t apply as ultimately the developer is required to provide a full four lane arterial road which includes the portion of 215th Street (Winterburn Road) North of the Yellowhead. That is also the case for 231st Street along Rosenthal and Secord. Those roads will ultimately have to be upgraded by the developer and some of that work is underway.

Today’s post will focus on the section of Winterburn Road from Stony Plain Road to Whitemud as well as Webber Greens Drive from just before the Suder Greens Drive/Webber Greens Drive traffic light. I think I can safely say these two roads create some of the biggest traffic challenges in the west end and I think it’s also safe to say that they would be the top two priorities for any roadway improvements within this ward.

A while back I put forward a motion to complete the detailed design work for the full widening of Winterburn Road and Webber Greens Drive. That motion was to reallocate funding from a separate project that wasn’t as large of a priority. At the time, the rest of council was hesitant to support that. The concern was that if we were to free up funding for additional road widening work, would these locations be the top priority across the entire city. As noted above, I think these roads are easily the top priority in this part of the city but it was fair to ask if they would be the top priority in the city.

That hesitation from council caused me to put forward a separate motion asking for a prioritization list of all the roads that need to be widened and what the budget requirement would be to complete that work.

An initial report came forward that detailed that the City is responsible for approximately $250 million of road widening work to be done across the city. The report also suggested that since there was such a large budget for all of the work needed, they would develop a separate plan that would be presented to council this spring.

This separate plan would provide a prioritized list of roadway improvements that should be done to help improve traffic flow in a similar way to a full widening but with a lower cost.

For example, on Winterburn Road, some of the initial ideas involve having a right turn bay leading to Secord Boulevard in order to allow the rest of the southbound traffic on Winterburn Road to move freely instead of being held up by those trying to get home and waiting to turn right into Secord.

Another improvement that needs to be made is providing left turn lanes to get into Westview Village. This is a heavily used road for the industrial traffic and traffic can get backed up which creates safety concerns.

These examples aren’t the only improvements that could be made but they serve as examples of ways that we could quickly improve traffic flow even if full widening isn’t able to be done right away due to the budget requirements to address all roads across the city. Our traffic engineers feel confident that there are changes like what has been mentioned above that will improve traffic flow in the same way as full widening but at a reduced cost that would allow us to reach more areas in a more timely manner.

To summarize, this spring, council will receive a detailed report that will outline the prioritized list of work that needs to be completed across the city, the cost for the upgrades that are being proposed, and the anticipated timeline for that work to be completed based on the current budgets. This will then inform our 2023-2026 Capital Budget deliberations which will begin later this year. The first stage of improvements, the expansion of the exit ramp from Stony Plain Road, is complete. That work has not resolved every traffic issue which is why more work is needed.

As we approach the end of the year and get ready for the 2023-2026 budget deliberations, I want to share an update about the status of these projects.”

I have been corresponding with our City Administration to get a sense of what may or may not be recommended in the budget. From what I understand, roadway upgrades will be recommended along both Winterburn Road and Webber Greens Drive. Those upgrades will likely involve widening the road from the bridge by 100th Avenue to Secord Blvd on Winterburn Road and widening Webber Greens Drive at least through the intersection of Suder Greens Drive/Webber Greens Drive. Assuming the budget is approved by council, that work could start as early as next year but the timeline won’t be finalized until our budget is approved.

As noted above, the reason for these likely recommendations is based on the advice of our traffic engineers who after completing the previous work in the history listed above, felt they could provide similar improvements to traffic flow with these upgrades as they would by widening the entire road. Since our 2023-2026 capital budget is going to be quite constrained, they felt that coming up with more cost effective solutions that produce a similar benefit would allow us to address more locations across the city.

Assuming these upgrades are recommended in the budget, then the only way it could change is if a member of council made a motion to remove those upgrades from the budget. That would be unlikely as I haven’t seen anything like that occur with roadway upgrades in my time on council.

If by chance the budget was released without these important projects recommended for funding, I will immediately provide an update to the community and would encourage/ask you to attend the Budget Public Hearing tentatively scheduled for November 28th and 29th. This would provide community members with the opportunity to reinforce the need for these upgrades. Again, I’m hopeful this won’t be required but I’ll be sure to keep everyone updated. Thanks for your time and if you have any other questions on this, please let me know.