Roundabouts may be coming to Sydney's busy Kings Road
George Mortimer | CBC News | Posted: January 23, 2017 10:00 AM | Last Updated: January 23, 2017
$10M project could include roundabouts, road partitions
Roundabouts and road partitions may be coming to help manage traffic congestion on Kings Road, one of the main routes into Sydney, N.S.
Up to 22,000 vehicles a day travel on Kings Road, said Gerard Jessome of the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal. The province is working to improve safety along a corridor stretching from the ramps at Highway 125 to Kenwood Drive and Weidner Drive.
"We're looking at a number of roundabouts in the area, improving access management throughout the business corridor," Jessome said.
He said the $10-million project is still in the planning stages. It will look at how vehicles get in and out of businesses along the road and how to improve the safety of those entrances.
Transportation Minister Geoff MacLellan said roundabouts and road partitions could help the flow of traffic, and he believes people will get used to them quickly.
"You're making left turns unabated by anything other than oncoming traffic, so people are darting in and out of left turns," he said.
Impact on businesses
Lori Latimer-Merlin is co-owner of the Ugly Mug Café, which is located in the Value Check Plaza on Kings Road, near the Highway 125 bypass.
"I think that hopefully it will slow down traffic," she said. "Over the years we've seen some very serious accidents out front. The traffic flow here is extremely fast, I think because they come off the overpass and they just continue at a very fast speed."
Concerned about business
The government plans to hold a stakeholder consultation with businesses along Kings Road. Tom MacKenzie, owner of Atomic Records and Collectibles, said he wants to learn more about how businesses will be affected during the two-year construction phase.
"What are they going to do to make sure that traffic can still get to this plaza?" he said.
"The last time they did a project on Kings Road there were a lot of businesses in the area that suffered, because it was a place people avoided because of the challenges using detours and getting in and out of places while that construction was going on."
Construction is expected to start early next year and last two years.