When looking at the Ottawa intersections the city has decided could use traffic signals, one location sticks out.
The corner of Eagleson and Flewellyn roads near Stittsville has been waiting for signals for 16 years and counting — despite property purchase requirements being met in 2015 and functional and design studies having also been completed, according to the city.
“It’s unacceptable,” said Rideau-Jock Coun. David Brown, whose ward includes the intersection.
Brown said he understands there isn’t enough municipal money to immediately fund signals at all of the 36 rural and urban locations the city’s identified.
He also knows more recently flagged intersections might be deemed higher priorities due to factors like collision rates and traffic volumes.
But out of the 36 locations, the corner of Eagleson and Flewellyn has the sixth highest collision rate.
Something has to give, Brown said, for locations that have been “languishing.”
“At some point,” he said, “we need to move forward.”
‘Disappointing’ delays
A member of city council’s agriculture and rural affairs committee, Brown is speaking out in response to new data the city recently shared with the committee at the request of its chair, Coun. George Darouze.
Out of the 36 spots where traffic signals have been deemed “warranted,” 19 are in wards or areas considered rural. Only six of those 19 are currently funded.
The ward represented by Darouze — who told CBC he was not available for an interview — contains six rural intersections that are on the list, with an average of two years since signals were deemed warranted.
Another five are in Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Jessica Bradley’s ward, including a pair of intersections on Conroy Road, one at Queensdale Avenue and the other at Davidson Road.
Each of those intersections has warranted traffic signals for nine years.
“It’s disappointing for sure. And that’s a resource issue,” said Bradley, who’s not on the committee.
‘I’ll believe it when I see it’
But the prize for the longest wait goes to Brown, whose ward — according to the city’s response — has been waiting for traffic signals at Eagleson and Flewellyn since May 23, 2008, when Larry O’Brien was still mayor.
Doug King, the owner of Make It Green Garden Centre, located at the intersection’s southwest corner, said via email that the city told his business in 2003 to expect a stoplight within three years.
That didn’t happen, nor did a potential roundabout, he said.
“Now I’ll believe it when I see it,” King wrote.
Drivers approaching the corner from Flewellyn encounter a stop sign, but there is nothing to calm traffic barrelling down Eagleson.
It’s not uncommon for drivers stopped on Flewellyn to wait 10 minutes to turn onto Eagleson or for over a dozen cars to get backed up, according to King.
“Customers have told us that they won’t even bother coming to the store after 4 p.m. due to the difficulty making the turn,” King said.
City looks at several factors
According to the city’s response to Darouze, construction at Eagleson and Flewellyn is still waiting on funding due to “higher priority locations” being added during the city’s annual review of the list.
The city did not make anyone available for an interview, and in an emailed statement, did not directly address the holdup at Eagleson and Flewellyn.
Their statement said sites are prioritized based on several factors including “level of warrant criteria met,” collision rates, annual average daily traffic volumes, roadway speed and the environment.
Each individual factor should not be considered in “isolation of the other factors,” the city added.
Bradley said the city’s resources are going to intersections “with the greatest public safety risk” based on data “and not just who’s been waiting the longest.”
But Brown said there needs to be some way for long-gestating projects to finally break out of their planning cocoons.
“What we want to do, certainly from a rural perspective, is ensure that at some point projects that have been languishing on the list move forward,” he said.
“Even if there might be a higher-needs location that’s just been recently brought on.”
According to the city, if the existing 19 rural locations were prioritized for signal installation using the currently allotted funding from the NTCD program, it would take approximately 24 years to retrofit all intersections. Additional money available under the city’s Road Safety Action Plan could speed up that timeline, the city added.
Brown said he expects the committee to discuss the issue at its next meeting on Thursday.