A few intersections in Morinville could see some changes.
Over the last few months, town council has been awaiting a report from an intersection planning project to address problems at two local intersections. The intersections in question were 100 Avenue/Grandin Drive and Cardiff Road/100 Street.
Jordan Betteridge, the manager of infrastructure services with the town, says that residents were particularly concerned with these two locations.
"The reason we move forward with these projects is that they are known as high-priority areas," said Betteridge. "They have very high traffic, and the residents had an urgent sense of safety [at those intersections]."
At last Tuesday's (Feb. 21) committee of the whole meeting, the planning committee presented two recommendations to help make things move in a smoother and safer manner.
"At the Grandin Drive intersection, the recommended improvement was traffic signals," said Betteridge. "The purpose with those is that it's a much cheaper option and the intersection is already configured to accommodate the traffic signals."
The intersection is currently set up as a four-way stop.
There's a different approach for the other location.
"[At] the intersection at Cardiff and 100 Street the recommended option was a round-a-bout," said Betteridge. "The reason that the Cardiff one had the round-a-bout was that we looked at the oversized loads that use that corridor quite a bit."
"It's better suited to accommodate a lot of the oversized loads coming from the industrial park and heading onto Highway 2. It does provide a higher safety impact than the signalization."
Betteridge added that the cost of adding traffic signals was only slightly cheaper at this location, so the committee decided to go with the safer option.
A few things still need to be done before these changes can be implemented; because both of these intersections have an impact on provincial highways, Alberta Transportation has to approve the projects.
At the moment, there is no distinct timeline for when drivers can expect the changes.
"It's ultimately going to be in the council's hands and depending on if we can find the budgetary approvals."