City installing traffic-calming measures on River Heights street to slow rush-hour shortcut seekers

Several traffic-calming changes are headed to Cambridge Street following complaints that rush-hour drivers use the route as a shortcut.

City staff will add new speed humps, traffic-calming curbs and turn restrictions to help reduce the speed of travel and the number of vehicles using the River Heights residential street.

A long-term traffic management plan will be developed after those changes have been in place for about a year.

Coun. Janice Lukes, chairwoman of public works, said she supports the upcoming changes.

“I’ve parked on Cambridge, going to visit someone, and I was overwhelmed at the volume and speed (of traffic). (There are) many streets that we need to deal with that have this scenario,” said Lukes (Waverley West).

“The key goal is to calm traffic down, slow the traffic down by changing the built environment.”

This year, initial changes will add:

• permanent speed humps on Cambridge and Oxford streets between Academy Road and Corydon Avenue;
• temporary speed humps on Wilton Street;
• road narrowing with traffic-calming curbs at multiple points along Cambridge between Corydon and Grant avenues;
• a right-turn restriction for weekday-morning rush-hour heading northbound at Waverley Street/Mathers Avenue;
• and temporary speed humps in the back lane of Ebby Avenue.

The councillor said the changes aim to avoid creating new traffic woes nearby, as many drivers in River Heights try to avoid congested main arteries such as Route 90.

“When we put traffic calming on one street, traffic is like water — it will flow to the next street…. This is why it really took a while to really do an analysis on it to see how we could calm traffic with the least amount of neighbourhood impact,” said Lukes.

The work will cost about $100,000, unless changes are made following public feedback. The changes will be funded within the department’s existing budget.

The city plans to inform residents about the traffic-calming measures through postcards and an online survey.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

X: @joyanne_pursaga