St. John's hopes to avoid Stavanger traffic woes in new Costco location

As Stavanger Drive prepares to say goodbye to Costco, the City of St. John's says it wants to stop traffic snarls from springing up around the wholesaler in its Galway destination.

Coun. Sandy Hickman, chairman of the city's police and traffic committee, admits Stavanger's current infrastructure isn't adequate for its current volume of traffic.

What happens when you remove Costco? That changes the outcomes that you would have found in that study.- Sandy Hickman

He said the city recently reviewed traffic patterns in the area and had been working on a plan to alleviate the congestion. But that plan goes out the window when Costco leaves, he said. 

"What happens when you remove Costco? That changes the outcomes that you would have found in that study," he said.

"So we will have to bide our time a little while here and just make sure as to what is happening in terms of is Costco moving. Then we're going to have to do some adjustments down the road a year and a half, two years perhaps."

Costco confirmed in January that it would be moving to the new Galway development in the west end of St. John's.

Hickman said Galway's streets are very well planned, but that Costco could still prove a challenge.

City will monitor Galway traffic patterns,

"We feel that, yes, it's much better planned in the Glencrest shopping area," he said. "However, it wasn't necessarily contemplated that Costco would go there and that there might be a huge boom. But we knew the area that was levelled out and planned for shops, and the planning's been done by the city and [developer] Dewcorp working together."

With residential growth slower than it was a few years ago, said Hickman, development of the area should happen slowly enough for the city to monitor and adjust as the area starts to fill.

"A lot of planning has gone in this," he said.

"It's much more professionally done than we would have seen 30, 40 years ago, and I think we are ready for this. And if it does go more than we expected, at least we have ways that we can widen boulevards and work on enhancing ramps and interchanges."