Chief: Traffic won’t be issue for new fire hall

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This article was published 08/07/2010 (5754 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon’s fire chief promises traffic problems will not plague the city’s newest fire hall.

After more than a year of construction, Brandon’s fire and emergency services personnel are now just weeks away from moving into the $11-million fire hall and dispatch centre at the corner of 19th Street and Maple Avenue.

Officials are hoping to receive the keys to the 30,000-square foot facility on Aug. 15 and will then move equipment and personnel from the Princess Avenue hall over a period of several weeks.

And though the regular bottlenecks of vehicles that jam the nearby Daly Overpass and the resulting slew of fender benders might make the fire hall’s location look like potential for disaster, Chief Brent Dane says they don’t foresee any problems accessing 18th Street once the stretch’s second northbound lane reopens this fall.

“That will ease that tremendously … we won’t see the backlog,” Dane recently told the Sun. “As soon as they hit the bottom (of the overpass), they’ll be able to split up into two lanes and continue.”

Emergency responders will rely on making right-hand turns onto 18th Street to respond to calls south of the hall, while calls that come from the north can be accessed via a left turn at the Hilton Avenue light signals, one block down from the hall location, Dane explained.

“It’s a fairly clear intersection, both from the north and the south. It’s actually likely a clearer intersection than the one at 18th Street and Princess Avenue that we come up now.”

The use of McDonald Avenue to gain access to the west side of the city will be limited, he added, because there’s simply no way to control trains crossing at 26th Street.

And while the department has researched specialized vehicle-mounted transponders that can be used to manually override traffic lights to allow emergency vehicles access to major thoroughfares, Dane said it’s not something they’re considering at this time.

“We will work and monitor our response times,” he said. “If we start seeing significant delays in getting through that intersection, then we will move forward to technology or working with the (provincial) highways (department), talking about the time on that light.”

A study on projected response times for both the new hall and the one that will remain on 13th Street and Queens Avenue show the average emergency call can be attended to in under seven minutes.

After a few months of monitoring, the department could recommend changes to which hall responds to different areas of the city, Dane added.

“We have lots of data to say how it’s going to work, but really, the best data we’re going to have is actual calls. We’ll go back on a monthly basis for the first few months and see where the calls are (and) how soon we’re getting there and then we’ll make adjustments.”

A grand opening of the hall, including public tours, is tentatively planned for early September.

» adowd@brandonsun.com