‘A little traffic circle’ being planned for downtown corner
The final design for the intersection at Black Street and Sixth Avenue is nearing completion, says the city engineer.
Photo by Vince Fedoroff
Top: RECONSTRUCTION UNDERWAY – Phase two of the Black Street reconstruction from Sixth Avenue to the Black Street stairs is well underway. Completion is scheduled for this year. Bottom: CIRCLE DESIGN – The traffic circle scheduled for the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Black Street is designed to slow motorists’ speed. Right: WAYNE TUCK
The final design for the intersection at Black Street and Sixth Avenue is nearing completion, says the city engineer.
Wayne Tuck said today the intersection is likely to include a “traffic calming circle,” as opposed to a traffic control circle, which the other circles in town serve as.
The plan calls for keeping the stop signs at Black and Sixth, he said, adding the traffic circle is designed to slow down traffic.
“We are going to do something there that can be tied into the rest of the Sixth Avenue reconstruction,” said the manager of engineering. “It will not be a major round-about as in the other locations.
“It will basically be a little traffic circle.”
A new Sixth Avenue is also likely to have other traffic calming devices, though not necessarily more traffic circles, he said.
For some, said Tuck, Sixth Avenue has turned into something of a mini-express lane to avoid the Whitehorse Elementary School speed zone on Fourth, motorists turning into the Qwanlin Mall and such.
“They think they can get around that traffic and speed up so they use it as a short-cutting opportunity,” Tuck said.
The speed of traffic on Sixth has been expressed as a concern by local residents, he acknowledged.
He said city officials met recently with residents of Black Street to discuss the ongoing reconstruction project.
Another meeting will be held for residents of the downtown at large to discuss the Black and Sixth intersection and the overall conceptual plans for the redesign of Sixth Avenue when the planning is complete, he said.
Tuck said he expects the public meeting will be held toward the end of this month or early June.
Though the reconstruction of Sixth Avenue is not currently identified as a priority in the city’s four-year capital budget cycle to the end of 2015, it has been talked about as something that could happen in the next five years, he said.
“That will be up to priorities identified by city council,” Tuck said. “We will be reviewing it this fall.”
The cost of the traffic circle at Black and Sixth has been included in the $2.43 million awarded for surface and subsurface work this year to complete the reconstruction of Black Street from Fourth Avenue to the clay cliffs.
Phase one from Fourth to Sixth was completed last year.
Josh Cuppage
May 9, 2012 at 3:37 pm
For those of us who live downtown and mostly get around on foot, Sixth Ave. can be pretty bad. The intersection at Ogilvie is particularly bad during rush hours. Something is needed at that spot - I don’t know what would be most appropriate, but lights or a flashing yellow or at least some type of crosswalk might help things.