Despite overwhelming support from the community for traffic lights, the province has decided instead to reduce the speed limit to 80 km/h on the Trans-Canada Highway at the intersection with Highway 791.
The change is being made in an attempt to improve the safety of an intersection that claimed the life of Chestermere High School Student Jaydon Sommerfeld in June 2015. The crash occurred during construction of acceleration lanes at the intersection.
“After careful consideration, and taking into account previous intersection improvements, we have determined the best option is to lower the speed limit,” said Deputy Minister of Transportation Barry Day in a letter to participants of the April 2017 community open house that laid out the options available to improve safety at the intersection.
The reduced speed limit will be in effect for both east and westbound traffic on Highway 1 from west of Range Road 281 to east of Highway 791.
The province said that the change in speed limit will do enough to improve safety at the intersection and said that “since the intersection improvement, no serious collisions have been recorded.”
The province also gave the increased risk of rear end collisions as a reason that the installation of traffic lights was rejected.
Chestermere-Rocky View MLA Leela Aheer is unhappy with the province’s decision saying that the change does not address the danger of turning left onto Highway 1 from Highway 791.
She points to the presentation at the April open house to support her view.
The slide that gave the option to reduce the speed limit said that the change in speed “does not create larger gaps in Highway 1 traffic, so doesn’t actually do anything to address the root cause of the June 2015 collision.”
“It doesn’t help with the angle of the sun it doesn’t help with the ice and snow that’s there or the volume of vehicles,” said Aheer.
In addition to her opinion that the reduced speed limit does not do enough to improve safety, Aheer feels that consultations were poorly handled.
Aheer said that the April 27 open house was poorly advertised in and around Chestermere and that she was not invited as the area’s representative to a follow up meeting.
“I was not consulted in this final decision at all,” said Aheer, “neither was the Sommerfeld family.”
For Sheri Sommerfeld the news that traffic lights are not going to be installed, as was promised in April, was devastating.
“So many of us walked away from that meeting thinking finally we’ve been heard,” said Sommerfeld.
Instead of starting the school year with a new level of safety at the intersection, Sommerfeld and many of the parents of kids attending the high school are continuing their fight for safety for their kids.
To this end Aheer is asking concerned community members to write to the Minister of Transportation and copying her office with their concerns.
Aheer has form letters prepared at her office that community members are able to use.
There have been many accidents on Highway 1 East and West over the years and the speed has remained the same. I travel this every day and I think it’s more of an accident waiting to happen. This intersection is no different than any other one on Highway 1.
I feel terrible for any family that has lost a loved one but I just don’t see how this will solve anything.
An over pass is the appropriate solution for this problem. As the population has grown in the Chestermere area no infrastructure has been added for access to the highway. I have lived in this area all my life and drive the highway past this intersection every day. It is scary for highway drivers as the cross traffic has become enormous and impatient.Also many of these drivers are new to highway driving and do not have the judgement of distance that is required to make a safe crossing which is only gained by time.Once again an over pass is the solution just like at Highway 9 not a speed reduction or traffic lights.