Although the reconstruction of Bronson Avenue is slated to begin March 27, some Centretown residents are still raising concerns about whether the city’s plans make the busy, traffic-plagued road any safer.
For the next two years, the city will be working on a $30-million project to revamp Bronson’s roads and sidewalks, as well as replace its old underground pipes. The section of Bronson from Somerset to Catherine streets will be closed for the rest of the year, but city staff plan to reopen the road by fall 2013.
Project engineer Bruce Kenny said the city will try to make Bronson safer for its pedestrians, adding that the engineers are going to shorten the crosswalks at the intersections of Bronson and Gladstone, as well as Bronson Avenue and Somerset Street.
But Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes said these safety measures don’t go far enough in resolving what she sees as a serious threat to pedestrians. She said plans meant to improve pedestrians’ safety, like shortening crosswalks, are only “minimally” helpful.
“Most of the public who live in the area … they’re afraid to walk across Bronson because the traffic is speeding,” she said.
“It looks like a highway, the lanes are wide, so the traffic can go faster than the speed limit …. That’s the problem we have not solved.”
The city scrapped a plan to widen Bronson in January because it would have been too difficult to move the road’s hydro installations.
But Holmes and other members of a campaign called Rescue Bronson say they wanted the city to reduce the number of lanes on the road.
Currently, Bronson is a four-lane road, but members of Rescue Bronson were hoping to shrink that to three.
“It was a partial victory,” said Robert Dekker, the vice-president of the Centretown Citizens Community Association and a member of Rescue Bronson.
“I’m not sure Bronson was ever meant to be . . . a major conduit that would take people all the way to the airport,” he said. “And unfortunately that’s what Bronson has become.”
But Kenny said there is too much traffic on the road to make Rescue Bronson’s plan work.
“We certainly looked at that seriously,” he said.
“We hired a separate firm . . . There would be significant delays in the corridor and with significant delays, what happens is you get a lot of cut-through traffic into your side streets. So it was our opinion that it was not a feasible option to bring Bronson down to three lanes.”
Kenny also said the city would make it easier for drivers to identify pedestrian crossings.
There are plans to add more visible crosswalks, decorative lighting and more trees.
“It all maybe doesn’t sound like much, but it starts to provide that pedestrian-friendly corridor along the side of Bronson and starts to give motorists the image of Bronson (as) something other than a highway.”
In the meantime, Holmes, other members of Rescue Bronson, and Centretown residents are still campaigning to reduce fast-moving traffic.
The current speed limit of the road is 50 km/h.
One suggestion coming from Holmes’s office is to put a traffic light at the intersection of Bronson and Arlington.
City staff has agreed to accept the proposal.
While Dekker said he’s hopeful that he can keep lobbying city planners to do more, Holmes said she’s less optimistic.
“I don’t expect the speeding to stop because the engineers are not interested,” she said. “They don’t consider that part of their job.”