Zero Ave and Highway 13
Posted in Commentary on August 31st, 2007 by Sacha PeterLangley Politics has a post concerning a road that I’ve written about a lot here lately, zero avenue.
I gave notice of two motions that will come back at the next meeting. The first is to have staff and the province work on ways to improve traffic flow at 0 Ave. and 264th St., as growing border line-ups are snarling traffic for residents wanting to go east-west on 0, and for people trying to get down 264th to access 0.
For those that don’t know the area, Google Maps is your friend. Observe that Zero Ave makes a semi-circle around the border area. There are stop sign on the east and west directions and north-south traffic has the right of way. Typically what happens is that there is enough border traffic queued up southbound that it clogs highway 13. You have quite a bit of queue-jumping from people that try to take Zero Ave east-bound and turn south onto Highway 13, and some people that take Zero Ave west-bound and turn south onto Highway 13. Finally, people that want to get onto Zero Ave from Highway 13 have no opportunity since they will be waiting in traffic that is destined to cross the border. Making the situation worse, people very rarely leave room in the intersection for traffic to pass since they are afraid that their spot will be taken by the aforementioned queue jumpers. Finally, there is a duty-free which has a minuscule parking lot on the west side of Zero Ave (for employees) which makes the situation worse.
The analysis of the situation is as follows.
The low cost solution would be to ban right turns for east-bound traffic and to ban left turns for west-bound traffic on Zero Ave. The cost would be to put up two road signs at the intersection and road signs for people that want to get into the waiting queue. East-bound traffic on Zero Ave would be directed north to 264 St (and making the 315-degree right-hand turn onto Highway 13 at approximately 5th Ave) , while west-bound traffic on Zero Ave would be directed north at 272 St, then west on 8 Ave, and then south onto Highway 13. For an additional cost, these can be re-aligned.
The advantage of the low cost solution is that it would only involve putting up some road signs – no actions with constructing new roads are required.
The disadvantage of the low cost solution is that it would increase traffic somewhat in the ‘detour’ roads. In addition, there will be a tendency for people to ignore the no-turn signs, especially at off-peak hours when there isn’t much of a queue at the intersection. This also does not solve the problem of people on Highway 13 wanting to get into Zero Ave – they would have to use the detour routes as well.
The medium cost solution would involve expanding the queueing lanes at Zero Avenue. Traffic that is destined to the border from Zero Ave would have their holding lane, and this would enable flow-through traffic to zip through the intersection as designed. A dedicated lane on Highway 13 would also have to be constructed to allow flow to Zero Ave.
The advantage of this is that you still have freedom to turn into the border from Zero Avenue, and not be delayed, assuming that the holding lanes are built long enough.
The disadvantage is that it would cost money to acquire property and construct the actual roads involved. In addition, the extra lane on Highway 13 would most likely be used for truck traffic rather than as a dedicated route to Zero Ave. This doesn’t solve queue jumpers either.
The Cadillac solution, which will never have a chance of going through due to excessive cost, would be to build an overpass. I can think of many other places that could use that infrastructure money (think about the intersection of Highway 91 and 72 St) and suffice to say, Zero Ave is not going to get it.
My instincts from a cost-benefit perspective favour the cheap solution.
Finally, the speed bumps on the Langley intersections of Zero Avenue really need to be removed, or at least from the trivial intersections.