Drivers across Grande Prairie are being asked to chime in on regular traffic operations. Traffic Operations Supervisor Wade Nellis says the survey covers topics designed to shed light on the many considerations traffic operations staff makes daily.
“A lot of what we do is governed by engineering principles, so we don’t necessarily take public feedback directly into our timing decisions,” he says.
“A lot of the purpose behind the questions I helped select for the survey were to inform people about the different factors we need to balance and the decisions we need to make around the city.”
Nellis says they tried to approach the survey by asking questions that would give residents a chance to put themselves in the traffic official’s shoes. He adds, quite simply, every very second they allocate somewhere is a second they take from somewhere else.
“If they were in our shoes and looking at a corridor, would they be looking at prioritizing traffic flow on the main street, or reducing the amount of wait time for side street traffic to access?” he says.
“If you want a perfect wave of green lights along a major corridor, you need to realize that’s going to impact drivers approaching that, it’s going to impact drivers coming from the opposite direction, and increase wait times for pedestrians.”
The survey can be found at the City of Grande Prairie website, with results expected to be provided to members of council at a future meeting.
