geography and environment

Some northeast residents are finding a road diet proposed for 112 Avenue hard to swallow. The city, at the request of the Highlands and Bellevue communities, wants to narrow the avenue, between Wayne Gretzky Drive and 50 Street, from four driving lanes to two, with a left turn lane down the centre. Highlands and Bellevue residents hope it will slow down traffic and make it safer for pedestrians to cross the road. According to Darryl Mullen, a senior engineer with the city?s transportation department, the road diet won?t reduce the capacity of 112 Avenue, which is an important arterial roadway. ?It?ll work to slow traffic and improve pedestrian safety ? but the key is, while effectively maintaining the capacity of the roadway,? says Mullen. ?By separating the left turning traffic from the free-flow traffic, the roadway is able to maintain the same capacity. Similar road diets have had success in cities like Toronto and Seattle, and if it?s effective on 112 Avenue it could be used in other areas of the city, says Mullen. Christine Bremner, with the Highlands Community League, says she was skeptical at first the road diet could move the same volume of traffic on fewer lanes, while reducing speeds. That takes one of your major obstacles to the free flow of traffic out of the way of turning vehicles,? says Bremner. ?I call it the 112 Avenue freeway,? says Bremner. She stresses that a road diet is not traffic calming, a method of slowing down traffic and reducing shortcutting using medians and curb extensions. Makohonyk says many people think the 112 Avenue road diet will simply divert traffic elsewhere. ?You take the traffic away from there, it?s going to go more to 118 Avenue. There?s enough pedestrians hurt on 118 Avenue,? she says. She?s also concerned that with only one through lane on 112 Avenue, traffic would back up behind buses on the busy transit route. ? says Makohonyk. Mullen says before the road diet can be implemented as a pilot project, city council will have to approve it.