1.0 INTRODUCTION

Watt Consulting Group was retained by Urban West Architecture to conduct a Transportation Impact Assessment (TIA) of the proposed Portage Park Residences residential development in View Royal; this TIA was completed in July 2021. In their review of the TIA, the Town of View Royal raised the following concern regarding vehicles turning left out of the site:

• Please confirm that the proposed access to the site is in a location where left-in and left-out access to Island Highway is viable and minimizes potential conflict that may arise from left turns; the potential conflict that arises is from vehicles turning left from the site using the shared left turn lane as a staging area to join west bound traffic on island highway. This type of turn is not permitted by the Motor Vehicle Act.

Upon review of the Motor Vehicle Act, no language was found that prohibits turning from a driveway into a two-way left turn lane prior to merging into the adjacent travel lane. This type of turn is an intended use of a two-way left turn lane, as described in the TAC Canadian Model Rules of the Road (2016) which states “drivers wishing to make a left turn from adjacent properties onto a highway with a centre two-way left turn lane may enter the centre two-way left turn lane and wait until there is an appropriate gap in traffic to safely allow the vehicle to enter” (Section 6.4).

Although the option to utilize the two-way left turn lane for left turns out of the site exists and is allowed the Synchro model used in the TIA did not include this functionality when modelling the access in the TIA. Therefore, the post development operational conditions summarized in the Portage Park Residences TIA are based on drivers exiting the site by turning directly into the westbound lane. As discussed in the TIA, the northbound movement out of the site operates at LOS D in the AM and LOS E in the PM in both the short and long term. Due to the limited gaps in Island Highway, left turning vehicles may have to wait some time to find a gap; however, as the 95th percentile queues are less than one vehicle in length, vehicles waiting to turn left will not block other drivers. Alternatively, left turning vehicles can choose to turn right and take an alternate route to their destination.

The TIA included a review of the access sightlines in both directions and determined that the sightlines exceed the TAC recommended minimum sightlines and are adequate to allow left and right turns out of the site.

Turning movements for vehicles turning left into / out of the site were created using a TAC Passenger design vehicle and can be seen in the image below. The turning movements illustrate that drivers can turn left into the site (using the two-way left turn lane) and turn left out of the site (directly into the westbound lane) with no issues.

Based on the above, the full-movement site access onto Island Highway is viable, allowed (with or without the use of the centre turn lane), and performs within acceptable tolerances.