Today at 5 a.m. marks the start of a long eight months for West Shore commuters as the 80-year-old Craigflower bridge is closed to vehicle traffic.
Saanich and View Royal, which are jointly undertaking a $15.89-million project to replace the bridge, have been publicizing the closing for months. But Saanich Mayor Frank Leonard suspects many commuters will be caught off-guard as motorists who normally use the Craigflower bridge are forced to divert to other routes.
“You might just think: ‘I don’t use Craigflower, so I don’t have a problem.’ But actually you will have a problem because you’re going to have a whole bunch of new friends on your street joining you on your commute,” Leonard said.
Leonard said the municipality will have staff out on roads this morning monitoring traffic.
“There’s only so much a computer model can predict in terms of traffic lights and timing and where they’ve got signage for: ‘Please don’t turn down here, down this person’s street.’ But I think there’s going to be a lot of tinkering.”
Craigflower bridge will remain open to pedestrians and cyclists during the initial weeks of the project, he said.
Meanwhile, commuters struggling with the closing of the Craigflower won’t be the only ones looking at traffic delays this summer.
The province has just issued a request for proposals on $3 million worth of safety upgrades to the Patricia Bay Highway’s Sayward Road intersection.
Leonard said the Pat Bay improvements, announced last August, likely won’t have near the traffic impact as the closing of Craigflower. “I’m sure there will be inconvenience, but in the overall scheme of things they likely will be relatively minor.”
The plans are to create acceleration and deceleration lanes for northbound traffic, improve nearby bus stops and install an overhead traffic sign to warn drivers when the intersection is congested. A northbound bus stop will be relocated to the south side of the intersection, where it will include a bus pull-out lane.
The work is expected to start in May and end in September.
The intersection is notorious for northbound rear-end collisions.
Meanwhile, Saanich has notified Cordova Bay residents to expect delays as it reconstructs the Sayward-Fowler-Hunt intersection beginning later this month. The construction, costing $924,000, is expected to take three to four months.
The municipality says it may be necessary to close access from Hunt Road during the early stages of construction.
The project will realign the intersection to a conventional T configuration. “We need to make it safer and less attractive as a shortcut,” Leonard said.
Safe access on the Hunt Road leg will be provided to and from Fowler and Sayward roads with improved pedestrian access to Lochside Trail.
