Edmonton looking to widen some roads due to growing traffic congestion

The intersection of Winterburn Road and Whitemud Drive in West Edmonton can get fairly busy, especially on weekends.

Now, the city is working with developers to widen some streets in order to address traffic congestion.

“It’s usually really congested. I don’t know that there’s a magic time when you can come without traffic, but I haven’t found it yet,” said Tracey, an Edmontonian.

Andrew Knack, the councillor of Ward Nakota Isga, says, “If you went today at 4 o’clock, you’ll see packing up on the highway. It’s unsafe. It’s been needed to be widened.”

According to the city’s plan, a number of roads in the Lewis Farms area will be widened if approved by council.

That includes 215 Street southbound between 100 Avenue and 92 Avenue; Whitemud Drive westbound between Lewis Estates Boulevard to east of 215 Street; and Webber Greens Drive westbound from the commercial area to east of Suder Greens Drive.

Developers would also fund pre-grading for the north side of Whitemud Drive between 215 Street and 231 Street.

“I think that’s great news. I think that’s long overdue, actually,” said Tracey. “When they start developing these big complexes with all these retail and huge subdivisions like prepare do it ahead of time.”

Brenda, another Edmontonian, says, “We notice it quite a bit now. The more that the residential areas have been filling up, this whole area gets very congested.”

Pending council approval, the plan to widen those roads sooner than expected will be funded by developers in the area, but Councilllor Knack wants more done.

“We need to talk about should the city look to front money that we would probably be putting in the next four-year budget anyway to get this done all at once instead of doing it in two separate stages.”