The intersection at Second and Fourth Avenues is dangerous and needs to be changed.

That's the opinion of city councillor Dave Austin, who again repeated calls to have the intersection looked at.

'I've noticed we've had yet another accident at Second and Fourth,' he said during Monday night's council meeting. 'Are we doing anything about that?'

Austin's queries followed similar ones he made to members of city administration last February.

'There has to be changes at that intersection; there just has to be,' Austin said.

'One of the last accidents involved a city vehicle.'

Austin said Tuesday he would like to see a question on this October's municipal ballot to gauge whether city residents would like to see Second and Fourth Avenues become one-way streets.

'One-way streets should be a last resort ... (but) I think it's something that we have to consider,' he said.

Sharilyn Gattie, a collision data base administrator with the Yukon government, said Tuesday the intersection has experienced the highest number of accidents in the city by far, with more than three times the number of accidents occuring at other intersections.

'There has been approximately 16 accidents at Second and Fourth from the beginning of the year until May 1,' she said. 'That's far higher than any other intersection in the city,' she said.

Gattie said all other intersections in the city to date have experienced fewer than five accidents.

The city instituted double turning lanes from Fourth onto Second in May 2005.

True to its character, the intersection hosted yet another visit by emergency services personnel after a smash-up on Thursday afternoon.

According to the Yukon government's (YTG's) motor vehicles branch, collisions at the downtown intersection nearly doubled, from 13 to 23, between 2004 and 2005. Accidents started to spike in May of last year.

According to the statistics, in 2005 there was one accident in January, one in February, two in March, four in May, five in June, two in July, one in September, six in October and one in November.

According to accident reports gathered by the YTG, of the 23 mishaps in 2005, two involved the confusion of inexperienced drivers; two were from another human condition; and three resulted from inattentive driving.

Another four were from the failure to yield the right-of-way; two were from the disregard of traffic control devices; one was from following too closely; one was from an improper turn; in 11, the causes were not stated; and one cause was unknown.

Each collision, according to the YTG, can have up to four contributing factors.

During the same period, at other downtown intersections chosen at random, accident ratios remained fairly consistent between 2004 and 2005.

In 2004, the intersection of Two Mile Hill and the Alaska Highway saw five collisions with no injuries, and dropped to four with one injury in 2005.

The intersection of Hamilton Boulevard and the Alaska Highway saw six accidents and no injuries in 2004 and two collisions and no one hurt in 2005.

Main Street and Second Avenue had nine accidents and one injury in 2004 and four accidents and one injury in 2005.

Strickland Street and Second Avenue saw two accidents in 2004, with no reported injuries, and four collisions and one injury in 2005.