Left turning lights and dedicated turn lane throughout Main Street proposed for Bonnyville

Fundamental changes to how motorists drive Main Street in Bonnyville are meant to make it easier for left turns at key intersections and improve traffic flow. 

But it will be a massive adjustment, with each lane being shrunk and painted anew. 

The first publicly released information from Alberta Transportation about the improvements to the municipal portion of Highway 28 came out on Thursday evening at GenMec ACL Hall. 

There’s very little construction involved, what will change is a left-turning lane that will appear throughout Main Street, left-turning lights at intersections, and some added pedestrian crossings. 

“We’ve been fortunate enough to discuss these improvements a couple of times with the town get some feedback from them. We appreciate the feedback and input they’ve provided,” said Landon Reppert, Construction Manager for the North Central Region in Alberta Transportation.

“These improvements do go back to a corridor improvement and management study that Transportation and Economic Corridors had done back in 2018 that identified a number of improvements along the Highway 28 corridor from Cold Lake to Smoky Lake.

“There’s a few minor concrete repairs or concrete changes, but the majority of the work is the signal lights, replacing the traffic signals, and the new pedestrian crossings.”

The province is footing the bill for the entire work since this stretch of roadway is still Highway 28. Several meetings have occurred in recent months with Town of Bonnyville staff and council on what they want to see.

This lobbying grew after an elderly pedestrian was killed on the intersection of 46th Street and 50th Avenue last summer.

“We like the plan they came up with,” said Mayor Elisa Brosseau on The Morning After.

“For safety reasons we need to have these left turning lights, we’re going to see that at the Brosseaus & Sylvestre’s intersection, and Sobey’s as well. People can look forward to having those.”

The lane will look similar to traffic to Railway Ave currently with the middle turning lane.

Alberta Transportation will put the work out for tender, but have told the Town this will be done this year.

“We’ll see how much work can get done this year. Whether they’re able to finish everything this year, or whether potentially it extends into a little bit into 2026, but we’ll see,” said Deppert, highlighting that ideally motorists would have time to adjust before snow falls. 

Milling some road concrete so the new lane is easier to delineate.

How it looks

Moving east, starting at the 55th Street intersection, the traffic signals will be replaced to meet the current Traffic and Economic Corridors requirements: both for equipment and the signal timing, with the new designated lane.

Some curb improvements will go alongside this to allow westbound traffic a right turning lane.

This will shrink the lane sizes.

Instead of 4.25 metres of parking lanes and 3.7 metres in the through lanes, it will go to 2.55 metres for parking lanes, and 3.6 metres each for the through and turning lane. Those are the dimensions on 50th Avenue from 55 Street to 51 Street, and 49th Street to 46 Street.

A similar left turn at an approaching intersection is designed for 51th Street. The pedestrian crossing with lights halfway through the block that is already installed will get upgrades as well, along with left turn light features at to the 50th Street intersection.

A new pedestrian crossing system with overhead mounted signs is proposed for the 49th Street intersection, which often gets a lot of students walking across at lunch hour. The current ones at 48th Street will also be upgraded.

Arguably the most congested intersection during busy times of the day is the corner of 50th Avenue and 46th Street, where a vehicle looking to turn left can stymy through traffic.

This is where the left turn lane and lights will likely have the greatest impact.

“We’re replacing and operating the traffic signals again. The side streets will be painted for the dedicated left turn lanes, and through and right lanes, and then to accommodate the further improvements that are planned a little bit to the east,” said Deppert. 

“So in the northeast quadrant, you can see the concrete island will be a little bit larger, just to accommodate some of the revised movements in that area, as well as it’ll be wheelchair accessible.”

Left turn access will be changed as well for the intersection of 44th Street for motorists approaching Main Street. The median curb will be moved to accommodate the space the left turn lane, as well as a through lane.

What about the rest of the highway?

Highway 28 between Cold Lake and Smoky Lake has had engineering study money for multiple years, in anticipation of major changes to the roadway.

Deppert says the safety improvements are being looked at from the study currently. He added that in Budget 2025, the government committed $18 million to the Highway 28 corridor for safety improvements, to take care of engineering, land acquisition, and utility adjustments.

He said once that’s completed, they’ll have an idea of how much to budget for construction.

“There’s a number of climbing lanes, passing lanes, some rest areas, a bunch of intersection improvements, and some horizontal curve improvements where some of the curves are sharp,” he told Lakeland Connect. 

“We’ve got engineering underway that’ll identify where we need to potentially acquire land to complete the improvements, utility adjustments. As we proceed down the path of getting those pieces together, once we acquire the land, know what adjustments need to be done for utilities, then we can look at, you know, the construction of those pieces.”