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Highway 20 closure prompts complaints
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‘More people are gunning it,’ says a local resident.
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After months of traffic chaos during the construction work in Beaurepaire Village, local residents are being forced to cope with yet another major traffic change.
As of Sept. 7, access to Highway 20 from Beaurepaire Drive has been blocked off, making Woodland Avenue the only conduit to the notorious intersection. Stop signs have replaced the lights on the south side of the intersection. The lights on the north side, including the train crossing, have remained the same.
The two-month closure will allow the borough of Beaconsfield/Baie d’Urfé to determine whether stop signs placed at the onramp and the two lanes from Beaurepaire will facilitate traffic flow. The survey is in response to complaints from drivers who felt that the lights at the intersection are not synchronized properly, resulting in longer-than-normal waits at red lights.
Barely a week into the trial period, a change has already been made. Last weekend two of the concrete blocks blocking off the eastern section of Beaurepaire Drive had been moved, a one-way sign had been put up, and cars going east on Beaurepaire were able to drive through.
Access to the highway remained closed.
Woodland resident Jens Hennings said that the traffic has doubled. “More people are gunning it,” he said. “I have a feeling it’s the people who are making a detour — going the extra way.”
“We had all that noise and traffic from the construction in the village. We were glad to get it all behind us. And now this,” Hennings said.
Hennings said that he didn’t understand the rationale behind the new stop signs. He said that before the new intersection was built, the old lights created a traffic jam with cars backed up onto Woodland.
“We’ve invested so much in (that intersection), why mess with it?” he said.
Quebec invested $27 million in the Highway 20 underpasses at the intersections of Woodland and Morgan in 1998.
“Some people might have to wait longer at the lights (but) compare that to the number of people that have been killed there,” he said.
Prior to building the intersection, the Woodland exit off highway 20 was the scene of many accidents, causing at least 11 fatalities.
Elizabeth Wardrop said that she finds it difficult to get in and out of her driveway. But she is more concerned about children walking along Woodland to go to school.
“Woodland and Beaconsfield Blvd. are the main streets that police recommend as safe for children to walk to school. They use it to go to Xmas Park and St. Rémi,” she said. “I’ve seen kids running across the corner of Beaconsfield and Woodland.”
Wardrop said that people living east of Woodland can use Basswood to access the main thouroughfare.
“But to cut off the people west of Woodland, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.
“It’s very dangerous. There has always been speeding on Woodland, especially at night. But now there’s increased noise during the day,” said neighbour Lauri Neasmith.
“There’s no problem with the lights the way they are. I wish it would go back. There’s enough traffic on the street,” she said. “What if a speeder loses control and hits a pole or a tree?” she said.
“It’s terrible,” said Susan Bedbrook, another homeowner on Woodland. “I almost got hit this morning.”
She thinks that police should sit on the corner of Basswood to catch speeders.
“They come down here like hell. On Friday night it was terrible. I almost got rear-ended,” she said.
“I didn’t see a problem before this. This is crazy, this. It’s an accident waiting to happen. Someone is going to come off the 20 without stopping — at 3 or 4 a.m. when the bars close,” she said.
“Remember the last big accident when the guy got killed? Maybe it’s a good thing to (have to) wait (at the lights) so long,” she said.
Ken Campbell lives on Brentwood Road, one of the side streets that are being used by motorists to drive to Beaconsfield Blvd. so that they can get onto Woodland. “What does the city believe it will discover in a two-month closure that it didn’t already know,” he asked. He thinks that they could easily gather the same data in two weeks.
Campbell said that the biggest problem at the intersection is the long wait for drivers going east on Beaurepaire. “If you’re the third car in line at the light, the green light only lasts four or five seconds. If there are four or five cars coming from (the other side) of Beaurepaire, they have the right of way,” he explained.
“If you are the third car in line going east and there are more than five cars going west or doing the funny U turn to get onto the highway, you get the red light again. If you’re unlucky, and you get five more cars, you can end up sitting through three full signals,” he said.
Campbell said that they should have installed traffic counters in Woodland. “No one is counting cars,” he said.
Borough councillor Anne Marie Parent said that not a single complaint was made at the last council meeting, which was held on the evening of the first day of operation.
She said that stop signs had been used before for short periods of time while the lights were being fixed. “We were told (by some people) that this worked well. For years, people have compared the intersection to Ste. Anne, which has stop signs and has as much traffic as we have.”
The problem was turned over to Tecsult, a consulting firm who reported that the present configuration of lights at the intersection, although complicated, was the only solution. But they also came up with changes to the lights.
Parent said they proposed a three-month trial, which council rejected.
“Residents have requested a change for a long time and now we will have a public consultation,” Parent said. “It’s better to come at this from all point of views.”
The trial period ends Nov. 12.
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2004-09-15 11:21:33
Comments:
Excellent story. More articles and pics by this reporter please
Posted by John
on September 16, 2004 14:30:7
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