Lacombe city council has put the brakes on a Transportation Master Plan until some changes can be made.
Council reviewed a staff recommendation on Monday night to hire Stantec Consulting to undertake the plan this year. It would identify thresholds when roads should be widened and traffic lights added and would anticipate future safety issues.
Just over $90,000 was put in this year’s capital budget to pay for the plan.
Mayor Steve Christie said council wanted to see some modifications to the plan to cover issues such as determining speed limits for Hwys 2A and 12.
Those highways are now overseen by the province but are expected to be turned over to the city later this year.
Staff suggested that adding the speed limit work would require more money in the budget, but council doesn’t want to see the budget increase so some cuts may have to be made to the plan.
Christie said it’s important to put some guidelines in place in the master plan to determine appropriate speed limits for highways by looking at traffic flows and other factors.
“We’ve never really had to do it on highways before,” he said.
The proposed plan included taking traffic counts at 27 intersections, projections of future traffic volumes and what improvements will be required.
The plan will come back to a future council meeting.