Meetings to talk intersections, turning lights on Main Street Bonnyville for Highway 28 work

As part of the anticipated work that comes with a major highway repair like Highway 28, also comes the details. Like what could change with Main Street Bonnyville aka Highway 28?

This influences how the Town of Bonnyville advocates for changes with the major roadway of the Lakeland area: there’s what happens out of town, and then what happens in Town.

A letter returned to council on Nov. 4 from the Minister of Transportation and Economic Corridors, Devin Dreeshen, shed more light on some of the details.

“The department has engaged a consultant and recently completed the project initialization meeting. As part of the engineering assignment, the consultant will review all the intersections within the Town of Bonnyville, utilizing the general recommendations found within the Highway 28 Corridor Study,” the letter states.

It goes on to say meetings with Town administration will be scheduled to discuss and review planned improvements.

“We specifically have been wanting to talk with the province about the intersections in the town, the lack of controls. We have no left turning lights,” said Mayor Elisa Brosseau on The Morning After. 

“Now that is a debate. Some people might say we don’t need them, but we talked about the accident and the fatality last spring, if you recall. And for those for us, that was a big deal. We continue to see these accidents. We’re getting fatalities, it’s unacceptable.” 

The intersection of 50th Avenue and 46th Street is often the centre of collisions, as well as the site of a death of a pedestrian, a 78-year-old woman, back on June 14.

In the aftermath, Brosseau and council said the Town would advocate for left turn signals at this and other congested intersections.

But having the lights is one thing. The lanes and designating the lanes, is another.

“We’d like to see some left hand turning lights at the lights that are already there, better controlled intersections, crosswalks, and then lights over on the west end of town, by the Neighborhood Inn,” she said. 

“They’ve committed that in December, they’ll start consulting with our administration, just to get a very clear idea of what it is that we’d like to see, and then hopefully see some work starting this summer.” 

This all stems from the $5 million in engineering and design spending the province announced for Highway 28 in 2023.