A report on the most dangerous intersections in Waterloo Region is out, and once again Ottawa Street and Homer Watson Boulevard in Kitchener tops the list.
The report covering collisions on regional roads for 2011 found the intersection had nearly double the expected number of crashes over the last five years.
The area, which has been problematic for years, is also the busiest regional intersection with nearly 62,000 vehicles moving through it daily.
Steve Lillico works nearby and says “There seems to be a collision almost every second day, a lot of times tires squealing and sometimes you hear the bang.”
The statistics raise the question of why the intersection has so many collisions.
Bob Henderson, manager of transportation engineering for Waterloo Region, says “There’s a lot of competition for the highway, it’s a busy, busy intersection.”
The region hopes a three-lane roundabout expected to be in place at Ottawa and Homer Watson by 2015 will improve the situation for drivers.
“It will help to flush vehicles through that intersection in a more controlled manner,” Henderson says.
While that plan brings its own concerns, the region notes roundabouts tend to at least reduce the severity of collisions when they do occur.
But Lillico thinks the real problem is driver error, people “taking the intersection at too high a speed and a lack of concentration.”
Second on the list is the intersection of King and Fountain Streets in Cambridge and third is University Avenue between Regina and Weber Streets in Waterloo.
Also of interest in the report, the number of fatal collisions in 2011 was up to 15, from five in 2007, while the number of fatalities rose from five to 16.
