BAY ROBERTS, N.L. — When Joe Pennell looks down the road from his home on Route 70 in Bay Roberts, toward the area where this street meets Shearstown Road and Cross Road, he sees nothing but trouble. And he feels this has been neglected over the years
"Rural areas are expanding," he explained during a recent chat with The Compass outside his home. "Conception Bay North is not far off of a suburb right now. That many people travel back and forth, the population is blowing up here. It's not really all that rural anymore. It's some class between suburban and rural...it's not what you'd call out in the country."
Noting much of that growth has happened specifically in Bay Roberts, the region's most populous community, he reckons there's more traffic coming to Bay Roberts now than ever from smaller nearby towns.
"But the infrastructure hasn't necessarily moved along to keep up with it. So, anywhere where the infrastructure fails in that regard, those people who may or may not be the best drivers in the first place – let alone accustomed to dense traffic – they need the infrastructure to be there and to be right to keep everything flowing properly."
And it's this area, just a few metres north from his home, where Pennell feels something needs to be done to help drivers. Shearstown Road and Cross Road meet Route 70 (also known as the Conception Bay Highway) a short distance from each other, almost creating a four-way intersection. There are a number of businesses in the area, with a gas station at the corner of Cross Road and Route 70 in particular accustomed to getting lots of traffic. Pennell knows from personal experience it can be difficult to turn onto Route 70 from either road when its busy. There are times, too, when a driver needs to also be aware of traffic coming from the gas station back onto the provincial road.
Pennell is aware of multiple accidents in the area over the last five years, including two instances where vehicles hit a utility pole in front of his home. Last month, there was a two-vehicle accident police and paramedics responded to at the Cross Road-Route 70 intersection. He says there are plenty of motorists who speed through the area, adding it's hard sometimes to catch sight of vehicles looking south on Route 70 as traffic moves down the small hill to meet the two municipal roads.
Roundabouts
Pennell, who has worked as a safety supervisor for work crews handling jobs amongst traffic, believes a roundabout (he calls them rotaries) would improve traffic flow in the area and increase safety by forcing drivers to slow down. They're not unheard of on the Conception Bay Highway. One was introduced last year in Holyrood. Pennell suggests this could work well in Bay Roberts, too.
"If Holyrood can have a rotary to simply manage traffic coming in and off of the Holyrood Access Road, right into the main part of town on an odd Y-shaped intersection, then why can't we solve some of these weird almost four-way intersection, bizarre offset sort of things here? There's one right up in front of Powell's (Supermarket, across from where Route 70 meets Water Street), there's one right here. Why can't we solve one where we have speed being an issue, accidents at a high frequency. Rotaries will slow traffic down."
Mayor aware of problem
Mayor Philip Wood admits he has heard complaints from residents over the years about the area Pennell is talking about. Some have told him there was a time when Cross Road and Shearstown Road lined up with each other, though he can't recall that himself having spent most of his life in Bay Roberts.
Right now, the town has a $1.2-million project in the works for Cross Road through a federal-provincial funding program. The town needs to hire an engineering consultant for it still, but Wood said the town will direct the consultant to look at the Cross Road-Route 70 intersection.
"It is in our planning," he said. "We are aware that there are concerns about it, and for a safety factor, we intend to look at some engineering on that to try and improve things."
While Shearstown Road is not specifically a part of that project, the mayor said council considers it to be a "number-one priority" on its action list. There has been preliminary talk of earmarking funds in the 2020 municipal budget for the road.
"We were going to have that intersection looked into as a part of it," he said. "The ideal thing would be to somehow get them a bit more closely aligned."
A traffic study previously commissioned by the municipality on the Conception Bay Highway did consider the potential use of roundabouts in Bay Roberts. On a personal level, Wood is a fan.
"Now, of course, it all depends on the engineering aspect of it. How much private property is there?"
Engineering on the Cross Road project is expected to take place through the fall and winter, with the town expecting physical work to start in the next construction season.
SEE RELATED:
'Bay Roberts hopes road work won't impact 2020 Summer Games'
'Bay Roberts councillors suggest new Pipers location could create traffic problems'
'New study to address needs, challenges for Bay Roberts businesses on Conception Bay Highway'