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“We said ‘Nope, we’re going to accept congestion there,'” he said. But the debate was fierce at the public open houses. “It was locals versus commuters.”

Three of the worst five intersections are on 111 Street. Two are beside the LRT tracks, at 51 and 34 avenues, and the last is just beyond the tracks at 23 Avenue.

These intersections “are bad on their own. You can’t just blame the existence of at-grade LRT,” said Ward 10 Coun. Michael Walters, who drives through the area daily. While he waits at lights, he sees hundreds of people on the LRT and thinks how much worse traffic would be if they were all in cars.

As for the delay, “it’s not the 10 minutes or five minutes that people will say. But sometimes it’s close to five minutes,” he said. “Once, I waited there 14 minutes, but that was an extreme anomaly.”

The plan for the south LRT extension has tracks running under 23 Avenue. Walters said he’s fighting to have it run under 9 and 12 avenues beside Twin Brooks, as well.

Ward 1 Coun. Andrew Knack said he hopes new traffic signals could help by measuring traffic flows in real time. At his request, city officials are exploring that. They’re due back with a report June 5.

Ohm said three of the 20 most congested intersections are in new areas where residential development is ongoing and travel patterns are still changing. Eight other intersections are outside the core. Officials could investigate each of those further to see if there’s anything to be done, but they’re not planning to do that unless council gives specific direction, said Ohm.

“We’ve got enough to do,” he said. His team is working on options to improve transportation through LRT and buses, and also investigating whether city-wide traffic signal upgrades can help.

estolte@postmedia.com

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Worst 20 intersections

How bad is 51 Avenue / 111 Street?