By Liam Verster

county connector, improved intersections

Traffic, transporation options discussed at County Council

Jan 21, 2020 | 5:30 AM

Some traffic and transportation issues were brought up at the County of Grande Prairie’s Council meeting on Monday, January 20.

The Village of Hythe asked the County to increase its County Connector service, while the County will be writing a letter to Alberta Transportation asking for an additional left turn lane to be added to at the intersection of 84 Avenue (Bauman Road) and Highway 2.

Council first heard from Dan Lemieux, the Community Services Director for the County of Grande Prairie, who presented a letter from the Village of Hythe.

Hythe asked to have Route 93 run into the village on Fridays rather than Wednesdays, and to add an additional two days of service to the schedule.

Lemieux says Council will approve adding service on Saturdays, with the possibility of a third day at the Village’s expense.

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He adds that the County needs to remain on budget, and while the Connector is a great transportation option, it’s not as widely used as they expected it to be.

“Certainly I think that people that live in rural areas tend to be more mobile, they do have vehicles. But again, we’re monitoring the situation, and we’ll evaluate it and bring a report back to Council probably later this year.”

The traffic issue brought up at County Council was the left turning lane at the intersection of 84 Avenue and Highway 2.

The proposed lane would help traffic coming from the East get across the intersection, and head South into Grande Prairie.

Clint Diederich, Acting Director of Public Works, says the traffic coming from the East gets more congestion than from the West.

“There’s a lot more traffic that comes from the East, heading into town. And coming from the West it would be a right turn, so they get out a lot easier than the left turn.”

He says the only upgrade needed to the intersection would be an addition of another turn signal, though Diederich could not speculate how much that would cost or whether the province would pay for some, or all of it.