HOME / TRANS-CANADA HIGHWAY REALIGNMENT /
Safety
The mandate of the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal is to provide a safe road network for Islanders and all drivers. The safety issues associated with the New Haven-Bonshaw stretch of the highway cannot be ignored for any longer.
The alignment was designed in the 1950s. Since then, traffic has steadily increased. It is now used by an average of 6,350 vehicles per day, of which 630 are trucks.
Experts have advised government that, because the road does not meet current standards, the public is at risk. There are five below standard curves, more than 30 public access points, very steep grades, and high traffic counts. The accident rate on this stretch is 50 per cent higher than the average rate for the Trans-Canada between Borden and Cornwall. It must be brought up to today's standards.
The realignment will improve safety by:
- Eliminating five unsafe curves
- Decreasing the steepness of the hills by half
- Eliminating more than 20 driveway accesses
- Improving sight lines
- Adding turning lanes and improving intersections
From 1996 to 2010, there were 103 collisions on this stretch, of which two were fatal, 38 resulted in injury, and 63 resulted in property damage. Factors like tires, alcohol and speeding exist to the same extent on the entire highway. The accident rate is much higher in Churchill because the road is outdated and difficult to drive. Adding more policing and speed zones will not solve the problem.
Collision Rates, Route 1 Borden to Cornwall, 1996-2010 (PDF file)
Although the information provided on these reports may provide a glimpse into potential issues along a section or sections of highway, they should not be used to determine the cause of collisions or to identify a section of highway that may be substandard. The safety performance of a highway must be looked at using a number of variables including the design of the road, traffic volumes, traffic speed, land use, the number of access points, collision history and so on.
The configuration type, sequence of events and contributing factors listed on a typical collision report is a standard set of values that the attending officer may choose from when filling out the report; this means the information may be very subjective in nature and may be influenced by the information provided by the drivers directly involved in the collision. It should also be noted that typically only collisions resulting in a fatality or serious injury are visited by officers or professionals specially trained in accident reconstruction. The department would not rely solely upon these types of statistics to determine if a section of highway was in need of improvements.
Configuration totals by type for the entire Trans-Canada Highway (TCH) and for the Bonshaw/New Haven limits
Vehicles are more likely to run off the road in Bonshaw-New Haven than the rest of the TCH where there are fewer hills and turns. In fact the two most prominent types of collisions in the Bonshaw/New Haven area are “run off the road right side” (44.4 per cent) and “run off the road left side” (23.8 per cent) for a total of 68.2 per cent. For the entire Trans-Canada Highway these two types of collisions represent 16.6 per cent of all collision types. The two most prominent types of collisions on the entire TCH are “rear end” (30.8 per cent) and “right angle” (14.2 per cent) for a total of 45 per cent. In Bonshaw/New Haven, “rear end” (4.8 per cent) and “right angle” account for a total of 11.1 per cent.
Contributing factors by type and by primary vehicle for the entire TCH and for the Bonshaw/New Haven limits
(Contributing factors by type for the entire TCH and for the Bonshaw/New Haven limits)
Environmental conditions, which may include slippery conditions, obstructions, and snow drifts, are the most prominent category of factors in the Bonshaw/New Haven area at 33.3 per cent compared to 14.1 per cent along the entire highway. This doesn’t mean the weather is actually worse in this area. The same road conditions can exist in other stretches along the Trans-Canada Highway and yet not cause as many collisions in areas where there are fewer hills and turns.
Overall, human conditions including driver inattention, inexperience or impairment were the main factors along the rest of the highway.
However driving too fast for road conditions was more likely to be the primary factor in a collision along the Bonshaw-New Haven stretch (11.1 per cent compared to 2.2 per cent). This isn’t the same as speeding. It can mean driving too fast in poor weather conditions or too fast to properly navigate the hills and turns.
Sequence of events for the entire TCH by primary vehicle and for the Bonshaw/New Haven limits
(Sequence of events for the entire TCH and for the Bonshaw/New Haven limits)
On the entire Trans-Canada Highway, the first event in a collision is coming in contact with a moveable object 74.3 per cent of the time (mainly another vehicle) while in the Bonshaw/New Haven area this occurred 28.6 per cent of the time. A non-collision event being the first event was higher in Bonshaw/New Haven (61.9 per cent) versus along the entire highway (16.7 per cent).
