EDITORIAL – Traffic snarl-ups and more talk of the need for a new bridge

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

A COUPLE OF traffic accidents in the Fortune Drive-Overlanders Bridge area this week had commuters in a tizzy. The resulting traffic delays were made worse by the detours caused by road work in the downtown area and on Halston Bridge.

The rerouting of traffic due to the work being done downtown has caused a lot of problems for drivers. The detour off of Lansdowne, up Second Avenue to Seymour has been a challenge, causing backups, more than a few near misses and one notable accident.

See also: EDITORIAL – Get used to the Summit Connector hairpin bottleneck – forever

and EDITORIAL – Why a new North Thompson Bridge is a good idea

At first, the problems were caused by confusion. Additional signage has helped. Now, though, drivers are simply impatient and, with impatience comes lack of caution. It’s a dangerous place to be these days.

Those trying to avoid downtown in their commute often take the Halston instead, but are likely to find long lineups trying to get across that bridge during rush hour. We seem to have forgotten how to zipper merge.

One would think the provincial government and local government could do some co-operative scheduling to avoid two much road construction happening at the same time, but it is what it is.

Summer-time road delays are nothing new for intrepid Kamloops commuters.

How will we ever forget the summer of 2015 when a major $9 million reconstruction was being done on the Overlanders Bridge, or the Westsyde Road upgrades of 2014?

So now, there’s talk about the need for another bridge across the Thompson River. It’s not new talk, though. For decades, a bridge across the Thompson and landing at Singh Street was on the books, to be built when the Kamloops population reached 120,000. The hairpin halfway up the Summit Connector was actually designed with that in mind.

But in 2018, that crossing was quietly deleted from the transportation plan in favour of looking for a location further west. Recently, six years later, City council gave the green light for a study into that new location.

The chances of such a crossing becoming a reality, though, are going to be slim until the city gets much closer to that 120,000 mark. If built today, it would likely be in the $150 million range or more; who knows what it will cost when it comes time to build it.

A traffic snarl-up caused by some road construction and a couple of unfortunate accidents isn’t enough reason to expedite a new crossing. The time isn’t far off, though, when it will be a necessity.

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.