Roundabouts may be coming to Sydney's busy Kings Road

Roundabouts and road partitions may be coming to help manage traffic congestion on Kings Road, one of the main routes into Sydney, N.S.

Up to 22,000 vehicles a day travel on Kings Road, saidGerard Jessome of the Department of Transportation andInfrastructure Renewal. The province is working to improve safety along a corridor stretching from the ramps at Highway 125 to Kenwood Drive andWeidnerDrive.

"We're looking at a number of roundabouts in the area,improving access management throughout the business corridor," Jessome said.

He said the $10-million project is still in the planning stages. It will look at how vehicles get in and out of businesses along the road and how to improve the safety of those entrances.

Transportation Minister Geoff MacLellansaid roundabouts and road partitions could help the flow of traffic, and he believes people will get used to them quickly.

"You're making left turns unabated by anything other than oncoming traffic, so people are darting in and out of left turns," he said.

Impact on businesses

LoriLatimer-Merlinis co-owner of the Ugly Mug Caf, which is located in the Value Check Plaza on Kings Road, near the Highway 125 bypass.

"Ithink that hopefully it will slow down traffic,"she said."Over the years we've seen some very serious accidents out front. The traffic flow here is extremely fast, Ithink because they come off the overpass and they just continue at a very fast speed."

Concerned about business

The governmentplansto hold a stakeholder consultation with businesses along Kings Road. TomMacKenzie, owner of Atomic Records andCollectibles, saidhe wants to learn more about how businesses will be affected during the two-year construction phase.

"What are they going to do to make sure that traffic can still get to this plaza?" he said.

"The last time they did a project on Kings Road there were a lot of businesses in the area that suffered, because it was a place people avoided because of the challenges using detours and getting in and out of places while that construction was going on."

Construction is expected to start early next year and last twoyears.