Road redesign too rich for our blood, staff says

City opts to bypass Four Corners fix

By CHRIS WINDEYER

It could be another five years before the City of Iqaluit builds a fix for traffic congestion at the Four Corners intersection.

City plans call for a gravel bypass road that would eventually connect the Apex Road to the North 40 area, but with a projected price tag of $1.7 million, planning and lands director Michele Bertol is concerned the cost is simply too high.

"I think it's out of our reach right now," she told councillors at a meeting of the engineering and planning committee of the whole April 5.

Plans for the bypass call for a realignment of the Apex Road starting near the hospital. The road would shift closer to Inuksuk High School and away from Nunavut Arctic College.

Because the bypass would be a collector road with limited access from buildings and parking lots, the high school would lose one of its two entrances and the entrance to the Nunatta campus building would move to Saputi Road, which runs between the Plateau subdivision and the Apex road.

A section of the existing fuel pipeline travelling to the Nunavut Power Corporation's nearby generating station would also have to be buried.

Bertol suggested shelving the plans for five years. But in the meantime, traffic continues to snarl at Four Corners, especially at lunch-time and the end of the workday. Coun. Claude Martel wondered if the city could install traffic lights, which would be a first for Nunavut.

Bertol said any traffic lights at Four Corners would require a second set near the hospital to reduce backups. A set of traffic lights, she noted, costs $200,000 each.

Mayor Elisapee Sheutiapik said the Government of Nunavut might help cover the cost if it's shown the project will improve safety for pedestrians near Inuksuk High School. That prompted Coun. Simon Nattaq to suggest approaching Nunavut Power for funding.

"I'm sure they also have money for infrastructure improvements," he said.

The project also requires the city to take over all or part of two lots on Masak Court. Bertol said one landowner has already agreed to hand over a sliver of his lot to the city.

Meanwhile, she said the Nunavut Housing Corporation has agreed to turn its Masak Court lot over to the city in a land swap. That lot will eventually become an intersection of Masak Court and the bypass road.

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