Drivers unimpressed with traffic diversions
Posted Feb 10, 2012 05:31:20 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
An apparent attempt by Halifax Regional Police to improve traffic flow off the peninsula didn’t go over well with commuters – and for the time being, police say there are no plans to do it again.
Cruisers were parked at three major intersections Thursday evening, forcing drivers to choose alternate roads, and causing significant delays.
“The main traffic patterns that were affected are those headed off the peninsula,” said News 95.7 traffic reporter Brett Ruskin. “So, out at the 102, out at the Bedford Highway and across the bridges.”
Drivers on the Armdale roundabout were unable to exit onto Chebucto Road, which leads to the North Street approach to the MacDonald Bridge.
Drivers on Gottingen Street were unable to access the bridge as police gave priority to vehicles on North and Barrington Streets.
On the Dartmouth side, drivers coming off the bridge were blocked from turning left onto Wyse Road, forcing them either right or straight onto Nantucket Avenue.
Ruskin says the main arteriers that police were giving priority to are those normally travelled by transit buses, so it appears police were trying to compensate for an increased traffic volume caused by the transit strike.
However, the unexpected closures prompted several posts on Twitter from annoyed commuters.
“HfxRegPolice need to know that this is NOT making things better,” wrote @dev0kan.”Gottagen (sic) is not moving, this is much worse than normal.” tweeted dev0kan.
“Police directing traffic in the Armdale Rotary, terrible idea,” added @sirbowel. “It is worse than it has been any other transit strike day.”
“I can understand that police wanted to step in to make the crossing easier,” said Ruskin. “It’s just that it would have been nice to have just a couple of hours warning so that we could have let drivers know.”
Police were not commenting on Friday morning about the closures, saying only that there was no plan to do the same during the morning commute.
