麻豆视频

Shortly after King Street reopened between Pine Avenue and Bannatyne Avenue last month, following a long-overdue widening and resurfacing project, the first complaints surfaced about traffic flow on that vital road.

The problem, according to local motorists, was that little two-curve kink just before Bannatyne Avenue. Motorists were not adapting to the change. People were getting cut off, and it seemed to be just a matter of time until there was an accident.

And if it was an issue now, imagine how bad it would be in the winter, when the traffic lines would be faded, and possibly buried beneath snow and ice.

Now, it should be noted that the change west of Bannatyne Avenue was not a complex one. It involved two quick turns. Yet some people never seemed to grasp the concept. And they took to social media to voice their concerns.

The city鈥檚 solution has been to move the kink a block further to the west. On the surface, it should help the traffic flow concerns a little bit, since it is further away from the traffic lights and the right turn lane at King Street and Bannatyne Avenue.

But one still has to wonder how motorists will handle those curves once winter arrives and the road paint isn鈥檛 as visible.

You can also be sure that people who reside on the northern half of King Street, and lost the parking lane in front of their homes, might not be happy with this change.

If this solution doesn鈥檛 pan out, then we can probably look forward to another adjustment in traffic line painting, likely after the resurfacing of King Street from Souris Avenue North to Arthur Avenue is complete.

At least these changes are relatively cheap for taxpayers. It doesn鈥檛 cost much to apply white and yellow paint on the street, and yellow paint for the curbs.

But there鈥檚 a bigger issue here, and that is the inability of some motorists to adapt to a relatively simple change.

We saw it back in 2015 and early 2016 when the new truck bypass north of the city opened, and stop signs were installed on Highway 47. Some people did not adapt easily. Numerous accidents occurred. One of them was fatal. And given the speeds of vehicles on the bypass, it鈥檚 surprising there weren鈥檛 more fatal accidents.

The number of collisions at the junction of the bypass and Highway 47 has thankfully declined in the past year. Some of that can be attributed to motorists finally adapting to these changes.

But the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure also had to install more visible lights at the junction, and reduce the speed limit for vehicles travelling on the bypass. Those were measures that wouldn鈥檛 have been needed if drivers would have paid attention and driven with caution.

Estevan isn鈥檛 the first community to have an irregular traffic flow change near a traffic light. It won鈥檛 be the last, either.

Those two quick turns before Bannatyne Avenue were an inconvenience, but ultimately they force motorists to pay attention to the road and make adapt. If you鈥檙e incapable of doing that, then maybe you shouldn鈥檛 be driving.

We鈥檒l see if this change is ultimately for the better, or if it just moves the traffic flow problem one block further west.