City to remove scramble crosswalks on Whyte Avenue

Three intersections that allow pedestrians to cross Whyte Avenue diagonally are slated to be reverted to traditional crosswalks this year as part of a bid to help buses move faster.

At a scramble crosswalk, all vehicles stop, allowing pedestrians to cross the intersection in any direction. The scramble at 105 Street was added in 2018, and the scrambles at Gateway Boulevard and Calgary Trail were added in 2021. They're seen as safer because they completely separate pedestrians from vehicle traffic; they even caught the eye of a news crew from Dallas that visited Edmonton in 2023 to learn about the city's Vision Zero initiative.

Changing the Whyte scrambles back to traditional crosswalks is a transit priority measure that is meant to help buses get down Whyte Avenue faster, said Shafayat Hossain, engineering project manager with transportation planning and design at the City of Edmonton. Routes 8 and 4, which run down Whyte Avenue, are on time only 67% and 79% of the time on weekdays, respectively, according to the Edmonton Transit Service route report card. Scrambles add delays for all road users, as they require a third traffic-signal phase. Hossain told Taproot the full suite of changes planned for Whyte Avenue could halve delays at those intersections.

Though the scrambles will be replaced with traditional crosswalks, Hossain said the city will not allow right turns on red and will only allow left turns during a dedicated arrow. This means the only time vehicles and pedestrians could end up in the same space is during a right turn on green.

"There is always the evaluation of the trade-offs and cost-benefit analysis," Hossain said, noting that his department has to balance what is technically possible, what is safe, what aligns with the City Plan, and other factors. "This is the solution that we are proposing."

Scrambles are safer because drivers don't turn through a crosswalk at the same time that a pedestrian is using it, said Brandon Kwong, board chair of Paths for People, an active transportation advocacy group.

"(There is) uncertainty and confusion around both right turns and left turns as they intersect with pedestrians — it's a super risky conflict point between road users," Kwong said, noting that right turns on green still put motorists and pedestrians in the same place.

Kwong questioned why the city would revert to traditional crosswalks in an area with high pedestrian volumes, especially when last year the city reached its highest number of traffic deaths in a decade.

The city will also widen the sidewalk where there is an existing bus stop on this stretch, meaning that buses won't have to exit and re-enter traffic, Hossain said. Buses will stop in the right-hand travel lane, and private vehicles will wait behind the bus as passengers board and disembark. The changes will also eliminate some right-turn lanes in the project area. Hossain said designs are still being finalized, and construction could start this year. The city doesn't have a timeline for completion yet.

Representatives of Paths for People were among the advocates who recently spoke at an urban planning committee meeting, urging councillors to pair work on bus rapid transit with the implementation of parts of the Old Strathcona Public Realm Strategy in the next four-year budget to avoid consecutive construction. Councillors directed administration to bring forward unfunded service packages for those projects for consideration in the fall, but the new crosswalks and wider sidewalks are part of a different project that was approved in the last budget cycle.

Still, the changes coming to the avenue this year could be considered as small steps toward BRT and the public realm strategy, Hossain said.

There are six scrambles downtown and one in the Stony Plain Road area, and there are no plans to remove those at this time.

Hear more about what's going on with transit priority measures on Whyte, along with updates on smelly water, 101 Street's bus priority lanes, the Army & Navy building, the Quarters, and budget engagement on Episode 349 of Speaking Municipally.