City crews will be putting up traffic lights at Josephine and Baker within a few weeks, ending months of a controversial four-way stop at that intersection.
There were two reasons for introducing the four-way stop, according to the city’s Colin Innes.
First, the heritage lamp standards, custom-made for Nelson, were deteriorating.
“They had metal fatigue and cracking and other problems. They are a one-off, so replacing them is difficult. They were cast by a company in Quebec that does not exist any more.”
Innes said the city wanted to wait until the downtown re-design project is complete because that might dictate a new design for lamp standards. But instead, welders at the city have managed to repair the old standards.
The second reason was simply to try out whether a four-way stop would work at that intersection.
“We have found that the four-way stop will not work for us, because there are too many pedestrians,” Innes said. “A four way stop would work if you just had vehicle traffic.”