Traffic counts submitted by the North Battleford Public Works Department seem to show a common thread.
They show that if there is a Tim Hortons nearby, there's plenty of traffic.
The 2013 North Battleford Traffic Volume Report, released Monday at the monthly municipal services committee meeting in North Battleford, points to two that have the highest volume in the city.
According to numbers from 180 daily count stations, averaged over a minimum of one week, the heaviest traffic location in the city is at Territorial Drive right between the Highway 16 intersection and the Highway 16 East Service Road just north of there. It sees an average traffic count of 14,547.
The other busy spot is the area around the Territorial Drive and 100th Street intersection with numbers close to that figure as well.
What have they both got in common? Tim Hortons locations close by.
Going off of Territorial Drive is the entrance road to Frontier Mall that goes directly past the southeast Tim Hortons location. That count station showed a volume of 8,587, the highest of any of the access roads into the Frontier Mall lot.
In fairness, Tim Hortons might not be the ultimate destination for all that traffic, as that road serves as the main entrance to Frontier Mall and connects to the service road that heads to other retail locations and Gold Eagle Casino down the street.
Another hot spot for traffic is the portion of Carlton Trail between Territorial Drive and Frontier Way, where the access to the Frontier Mall and Walmart is located. A total of 8,862 cars were counted on that road.
Some of that traffic is likely to include those driving to the CUplex down the street. However, traffic around the CUplex itself is not a major problem. The busiest stretch of road around the CUplex location is on Carlton Trail between Heritage Way and the Carlton Trail entrance to the CUplex, which saw a traffic volume count of 989.
Beyond that, there were not a lot of specifics in the report about the impact the new CUplex has had on traffic in the southeast quadrant.
Councillor Ryan Bater indicated he wanted to see some information about the southeast quadrant in general comparing pre-and-post CUplex. Public Works Director Stewart Schafer said a brief report would be written up by the engineering department and brought back to council.
In the north end, the Territorial Drive/100th Street intersection is busy on all sides, with 12,788 vehicles counted to the east, 12,255 to the north, 10,945 to the south and 10,872 to the west.
The traffic between the Killdeer Drive/95th Street intersection and the Co-op/Sobeys access road showed a similar heavy traffic count of 10,825. Notably, the access road from Territorial Drive into the Co-op's large and heavily-used parking lot showed a traffic count of 4,308.
However, the traffic count on the access road north to Sobeys was counted at a much higher 6,947, due in large measure to the popularity of a certain donut-and-coffee establishment named after a former NHL star.
Interestingly, though, while it is a busy location, the traffic volume there is down from the 2010 figure of 7,919 at that same location.
The high traffic counts at these locations should not come as a surprise. The north end 100th and Territorial intersection has been noticeably busy for a long time, and that particular intersection was the subject of talk during the 2014 budget deliberations about upgrading traffic lights.
During budget deliberations in January, councillors asked for a turning light for Territorial Drive traffic turning north onto Highway 4 at the Sobeys/Co-op Mall corner. Council also discussed the intersection of the Highway 16 bypass and Poundmaker Road, as well as the intersection at Territorial and Highway 4 South, but those projects are on hold until the City can secure some provincial funding.
Also on hold is a proposal to install traffic signals at the intersection between Territorial Drive and the Sobeys-Co-op intersection.
Not surprisingly, Territorial Drive, 100th Street and the Highway 16 bypass are among the most heavily used roads in the city. There are heavy traffic counts on 100th Street all the way down to Railway Avenue, with traffic counts peaking at 13,866 between 17th and 18th Avenue.
Highway 16 is also heavily used, with a traffic count of 11,290 noted just east of the Battleford Road/Poundmaker Trail spot.
The annual Traffic Volume Report is used by City departments, senior governments, commercial/industrial interests and the public. Data is shown for the last five years, but the report does not provide a statistical analysis or trending; the report simply provides information to show what the traffic movements are.
