Saint John eager for Ottawa to join province in Simms Corner redevelopment

The Simms Corner intersection in Saint John, N.B., causes no shortage of headaches for drivers.

If you have lived in Saint John, N.B., for any length of time, chances are you have had to buckle up and take on a well known intersection on the city’s west side.

“At times it’s a little bit tough,” says Saint John resident Brian Smith who has been driving through the intersection known to locals as Simms Corner for decades. “If you take your time and just watch for your openings it’s not real difficult to get through at all.”

Simms Corner, which sees part of the provincial-municipal Route 100 Highway run though it, is only getting busier as industries continue to grow. That’s why in early March the province committed to redesigning the intersection and is now calling on Ottawa to help.

“Simms Corner is a significant priority for the province because it serves so many different interests,” New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt told reporters Thursday.

“We have a growing port in the Port of Saint John, which means the kind of container traffic that we’re seeing that we love and we’re really excited about is moving through Simms Corner at a more and more frequent rate.”

The request for Ottawa to chip in for the intersections redevelopment was part of a letter sent by the premier to newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney. It was one of the first points noted in the letter as part of her desire to see nation-building projects occur within her province.

“It’s something that the federal government needs to be a partner at the table with,” says Holt.

“That is a prime example of a trade corridor and the infrastructure that supports the movement of goods into other countries and into other provinces.”

Many of the goods that flow through the four way intersection – with two stop signs, various yield signs, and turn limitations in multiple lanes – are related to the Saint John port of the Irving Pulp and Paper Mill.

It’s traffic that is only expected to increase in the years ahead as Canada looks to diversify its trading partnerships with other countries, as well as knock down internal trade barriers to allow for a smoother flow of goods across the country. The pulp and paper mill is also undergoing an upgrade its facility that will cost over $1 billion.

Saint John Mayor Donna Reardon says she wasn’t expecting to see Simms Corner mentioned in the premiers first official letter to the new prime minister but is excited to see how things progress.

“This is really great news for us because it’s an important trade corridor,” says Reardon.

“The port is using that intersection, people are using that intersection, and we expect it will ramp up, especially now as we look for other trading partners.”

Like any driver in Saint John, Reardon knows the intersection can be tricky to navigate if you aren’t familiar with it. She says the time is now for an upgrade with the city’s population on the rise.

Reardon adds train traffic in the area is also expected to increase as the port continues to grow. She is expecting trains will be a minimum of 3 kilometres long, which may lead to potential half hour waits for motorists multiple times a day.

How to integrate vehicle traffic with the trains is one the questions that will have to be answered as part of the corner’s redevelopment the mayor says, adding truck traffic can also congest the intersection in a hurry.

While she is unsure how the redesign would look, Reardon says any redevelopment would not be possible without the help of both the provincial and federal government.

Port Saint John CEO Craig Bell Estabrooks is pleased his port and Simms Corner is a priority for the premier. He says it demonstrates how critical the ports operations are to the province’s continued growth.

Bell Estabrooks jokes Simms Corner has been a priority for the city since before he was born and says now is the time to find a solution that will not only benefit a smooth flow of goods in an out of the container terminals, but for everyone in the city.

“We’ll have bottlenecks at different points in transit as [products] get to its final destination or coming from origin,” the port CEO says.

“We know Simms Corner can be a bit of a challenge right now. NB Southern Railway does a tremendous job trying to time when cargo goes through, but if we can get a true fix in the long run as we grow and more traffic has to go through it, Simms Corner will cause less of a disruption.”

There is no timeline for when work or planning on a redesigned Simms Corner would begin.

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