Short-term traffic headaches should lead to long-term safety improvements at a dangerous West 乌鸦传媒 intersection, city councillors say.听
Residents face long and complicated detours when the busy corner of Old Okanagan Highway and Butt Road is closed this summer for a $4.3 million rebuild.听
鈥淚t乌鸦传媒 really, really good to see this moving forward,鈥 Coun. Tasha Da Silva said during Tuesday乌鸦传媒 meeting.听
鈥淚 don鈥檛 think there乌鸦传媒 a single person in this room that hasn鈥檛 either had a close call or played chicken with another car trying to get through this intersection,鈥 Da Silva said.听
鈥淚t乌鸦传媒 certainly a very busy intersection. I鈥檓 sure our public is really happy to see this (improvement project) going forward,鈥 said Mayor Gord Milsom.听
The corner records more collisions than any other municipal intersection in the city of 40,000 people. Planned improvements include more left turn lanes, bike lanes, sidewalks and drainage works.听
It is the only signalized intersection operated by the municipality, reflecting both its traffic volumes and long-standing safety concerns. Traffic lights along Highway 97 in West 乌鸦传媒 are maintained by the province.
Originally, the city had a budget of $2.9 million for the project. But only one bid was received, as as a result of the complexity of the work involved, city councillors heard from staff, and it was substantially above the allotted budget.听
鈥淥bviously we aim to get more bids on each project,鈥 Rob HIllis, a city engineer, told council. 鈥淲e were fairly surprised we only received one bid with the amount of questions we had up until the (tender) closing date.鈥
As a result, some changes were made to the design of the project and money was shifted from other municipal undertakings.听
Work will start at the end of May. The exact timing and duration of the complete intersection shut-down was not presented to council, but the report said the closure would be in effect for many weeks.听
Da Silva said the city must do a good job of communicating the closure and outlining the various other routes residents can take to get where they鈥檙e going. She also said: 鈥淕ood luck to us all with the detours this summer.鈥
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