City to nix College Drive pedestrian overpass for rapid transit redevelopment

WATCH: The City of Saskatoon may soon demolish the College Drive pedestrian overpass as part of its bus rapid transit project.

The College Drive pedestrian overpass could soon be a thing of the past.

The city’s transportation committee voted in favour of a concept design Tuesday that would replace the overpass with a street-level crossing as part of major changes coming to the busy roadway.

“The current pedestrian overpass is not accessible. If we were to build a pedestrian overpass today that at that location, it would look different than that,” Sheliza Kelts, the city’s BRT transportation section manager, said to the committee.

The changes are all part of Link, the new bus rapid transit system the city has spent much of the last decade working to realize.

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Link, expected to launch in 2028, aims to revamp the transit network and have more buses moving quickly across major routes.

Extensive construction plans that were previously approved by council will need to begin by next year in preparation of the launch. That includes replacing the medians along College Drive — a major Link route — with one bus-dedicated lane travelling in each direction. Traffic would be reduced to two lanes in either direction from Preston Avenue to Clarence Avenue.

A series of Link platform stations would be installed along College Drive to accommodate Link.

Tuesday saw two major changes to the previous plan, which includes having buses moving in the same direction as traffic as opposed to contraflow, but much of Tuesday’s discussion surrounded the overpass replacement.

“If we were to build a crossing there today and we got to decide what it would look like, it would be an at-grade crossing. That would be our standard today,” Kelts said.

Kelts told the committee that engagement sessions with the public over the winter produced “mixed” results.

The University of Saskatchewan (U of S) was consulted before bringing the changes to the committee, and it endorsed removing the overpass.

“It really is not accessible,” said Mike Pawluski, a planner with the U of S.

“I’ve only used that one time since being employed here, and it was not the most safe and comfortable experience going up that overpass. It is very steep. There is no resting space.”

Due to more pedestrians having to cross College Drive between Cumberland and the Stadium Parkade, the speed limit would be lowered from 60 kilometre per hour to 50 kilometres per hour.

Students and staff who use the overpass frequently weren’t in favour of the changes.

“I’m just a tiny bit disappointed because it’s super convenient to cross College (Drive) with this rather than having to cross at one of the crosswalks, because this street is usually really busy when I’m coming for classes or for work,” Jack Bell said.

“It would suck a lot more in the winter when it’s -40,” Cole Sarauer said. “I think they should keep it.”

Some pedestrian crossings would also look different once Link is active.

Pedestrians would have to cross two lanes of traffic and the Link platform before having to cross the bus lanes and another two lanes of traffic. The replaced crossing to the parkade would be signalized with an average wait time of under two minutes.

“Our job is to try to make everything work and sometimes it’s a little bit of give and take with providing options for people and making it safe,” said Jay Magus, the city’s director of transportation.

Magus said because a pedestrian crossing is being removed at Bottomley Avenue, there are no additional crossings being added. He suspects traffic will be slowed by approximately three minutes once Link is running.

As the city and university both grow, it’s the city’s intention to incentivize other modes of transportation, especially along College Drive.

“The idea is to align that transportation system with the future land use goals of providing more and more ways to get around, with the priority being transit, and not, single passenger vehicles anymore,” said Magus.

The report now goes to city council for final approval at the end of the month.