A Deep Dive on the Town of Canmore's Award-Winning Protected Intersection

A Deep Dive on the Town of Canmore's Award-winning Protected Intersection

The Town of Canmore, Canada won the 2023 Alberta Minister’s Award for Transportation Design Innovation for the protected intersection between Bow Valley Trail and Railway Avenue. The concept design was created by the Town of Canmore, Mobycon, and Dick van Veen, the detailed design was done by McElhanney – who were the engineer of record, and traffic signals were designed by Stantec. In this Mobycon Academy Short, Manager of International Strategy Lennart Nout introduces our new colleague, Integrated Mobility Consultant Narayan Donaldson, to talk about the features that make this intersection stand out.    

He dives into the weeds of protected intersection design, near-side signals, multi-stage pedestrian crossings, and the effect good design can have on road safety and efficiency. Hopefully, more cities and towns across North America will follow Canmore’s lead after seeing its success.

[islandbhoi]

Love that the crossing pedestrian is protected from turning motor traffic. Never understood why turning traffic is permitted while pedestrians are crossing. This looks fantastic! Can you come to Ladner (Delta) BC!

[TheTrafficTech]

Very cool! I have this intersection on my “must see” list!

[ActiveTowns]

Great video! Need to get the Active Towns tour up to Canmore. Cheers! 😀

[simonmueller]

Good to see the 2014 ITP and its evolution are taking shape! Great job Canmore and team!

[jeremychrzan]

Another great Mobycon Academy video. I love all the signalization treatments that were used and the explanations about why certain design decisions were made!

While the geometry of this design is nice, I struggle with the pedestrian accessibility issues. To a person with vision disabilities, this sidewalk-level design would function as a shared use path rather than a separated bike lane and sidewalk. As such, detectable warnings are needed across both the pedestrian and bike spaces at intersections so that a person with vision disabilities is given a detectable cue that they are about to step into the street --- even if they're walking in the space that is intended for bikes. I refer to these types of designs as a "shared use path intended to operate as a separated bike lane."

[arzinet]

Great job on this intersection! I live in town and it's a mystery to me why it generates so much hate. It's simple, efficient and a pleasure to drive through. Yes, really. And while driving through it is fine, biking and walking are even better.

Of course traffic often backs up a long way - the problem is the train and the fact that there's just too many damned cars in town now. Either we completely ruin the place by building a six-lane throughfare through town, or we design solutions like this to move traffic as efficiently as possible while encouraging people to walk or cycle.

[HansKeesom]

Just been to Toronto, please do this to every intersection in that city, please!

[humanecities]

I hope intersections like this will become standard rather than special.

[HigherQualityUploads]

Question: what's the purpose of having signs with the printed lane arrows above the traffic signals? Are they meant to be a backup in case the power goes out?

[andrew]

Is this Mr Ontario Traffic Man? If so, congrats on landing at Mobycon!

[lyndsaybarwell]

A lot of this is standard in the UK and I feel safer as a pedestrian here than in Canada and it's easier to drive and not worry about hitting a pedestrian. If a light is green here, a pedestrian *will not* be in your path.

[NewBuildmini]

This is the first time I've seen Ontario Traffic Man in real life. I thought he was much more younger judging by his voice.

[plankton]

One thing I wish we saw more of with intersections is pedestrian first priority. So many times there are long waits at crossings and I suspect a lot of them could be shortened, and in many instances not impact traffic too detrimentally.

[TheManMakerChannel]

The turning lanes are too short and overflow in the centre lanes. This causes the traffic to backup for hundreds of metres and miss their green light sometimes 2-3 times in a row.

[grcgrcgrcgrc]

Now they need to head a little west & clean up the mess in Banff.

[frafraplanner]

This is easily the best intersection on the continent of North America, no exaggeration

[willgadd]

So many great ideas I support, but I live in Canmore, and I do everything I can to avoid this intersection on my bike or in my car, as do most people who live here. I love protected intersections in Europe, ride my bike a lot, and drive and ride globally. But this is truly a terrible copy of a European style protected intersection. It does not have the low "side signals" near the stop line like most similar intersections do in Europe (and you can see some in the "examples" in this video). So if you're on the stop line you literally can not see the lights overhead, and that is a fact no matter how often the town or Mobycon says otherwise. And that's AFTER moving the stop line back 15 feet or so and lower the lights... The side turn lanes are way too short to work effectively. The signals for pedestrians and bikes are a disaster. My kid was almost hit at this intersection on her bike because people can't see the lights once in the intersection, or on the stop line, and so go straight/turn at the wrong time etc. I support the ideas behind this intersection on a lot of levels, but unfortunately the design is really poor. I'd invite Mobycon to come and use this intersection on a bike or in a car and see why so many locals truly hate it. If one of these is proposed for your town make sure it will be done well, not like this one.

[andyarts]

As a Canmore resident this is one of the worst intersection I have ever seen. I could go into details as to why but the list would be to long. I can see it working in other places but it fails to work here.

[jessicajessica]

These numbers are based off the beginning of covid when no one was here, of course pedestrian and cyclist traffic have increased. This also doesn't take into account the shopping center that was built there at the same time.
The bottom line is, this intersection has caused more collisions in the 4 years its been here than the previous 10 years combined. I bet the guy who wrecked himself trying to avoid pedestrians on the bike path, or the child who got hit by a car whilst riding her bike thru, would agree that this was a HUGE mistake that locals pay for every single day. Stop giving yourself a pat on the back for this absolute pile of garbage, no one likes it.

[DjThreesixty]

now train service from Calgary through to Banff and points west please so we don't have to drive there in the first place. thank you