Walter Cordery: Far too many traffic lights on city streets

Some days it seems there are too many traffic lights in Nanaimo for the amount of traffic in the city.

I recently drove from the Nanaimo Daily News office on McCullough Road onto the Island Highway and headed toward Comox Road downtown. From Comox Road, I turned right and proceeded along Bowen Road until I reached the Island Highway again.

From there, another righthand turn led me back to Labieux and then to McCullough - a trip of just over 11 kilometres.

There were 21 traffic signals along the way in that short trip. And when the recently installed traffic lights at Terminal and Cypress roads are activated, there will be 22.

Frustrating anyone in a hurry is the fact the lights aren't synchronized.

In the past three years, two other traffic lights have popped up at Bowen Road and Buttertubs Drive.

Chris Winkel, Nanaimo's traffic and transportation engineering specialist, said synchronizing traffic signals is more difficult than it seems.

Both Winkel and Bob Prokopenko, the city's senior manager of engineering, said that installing the necessary infrastructure to synchronize traffic in Nanaimo would be expensive.

Prokopenko said the city is looking at alternatives to traffic lights and has set up a new roundabout at Boxwood Road and Dufferin Crescent to keep traffic moving.

According to the city's Downtown Design Guidelines: "A double-lane roundabout is designed for the intersection of Terminal Avenue and Nicol Street at the entrance to the proposed Port Place Plaza.

"Nicol Street would retain two lanes of traffic in each direction. In principle, this concept appears to support current traffic volumes."

The city is also considering a roundabout at the Wentworth Street, Cliff Street and Terminal Avenue intersections.

If engineers at the city believe the way to keep traffic moving along busy arterial roads is to install roundabouts, then bring them on. They aren't that difficult to figure out. People in Europe have been using them for decades.

Surely there must be a better way to handle traffic than to throw a traffic light up whenever traffic volumes seem to indicate the roads are getting too crowded.

Prokopenko said the way the city decides to locate traffic signals is based on a provincial system as well as local considerations.

That may be the case in New York, Toronto, London, Montreal or Paris where there is a viable underground transit system that people can use to get around quickly but it seems ridiculous for Nanaimo.

Stop-and-go driving forces commuters to use much more fuel. It also pumps more greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

If city council doesn't want to feel the wrath of local drivers by putting in roundabouts, they should fork over the money to synchronize traffic lights along the Island Highway and Bowen Road.