First Street to South Railway U-turn no longer allowed

The change is being made to accommodate the ongoing construction and future design plans for the Towne Square part of the Waterfront District.

“The Towne Square’s design is going to encroach into First Street as well as Sixth Avenue. We’re going to expand the site and that will make the physical U-turn movement impossible for vehicles to make once the project is complete,” says Ian Hakes, project manager of Land Development with Invest Medicine Hat.

The finished Towne Square design expands the site and sidewalks onto the current First Street, narrows the roadway and creates a food truck alley.

Hakes says they’re working with Medicine Hat Polcie Service to get the word out and that tickets won’t be issued right away.

“We’re going to give a few weeks for drivers to become acclimated to the actual no U-turn and then eventually enforcement will occur. But that will happen when you physically can’t make the turn,” he says. “So once you have to start doing three-point turns and blocking traffic potentially endangering construction crews and or pedestrians, that’s when the enforcement begins.”

Image from Invest Medicine Hat

Hakes says the city’s in the process of conducting a larger-scale downtown transportation network study and there will be other recommendations and improvements within the downtown core moving forward.

The Towne Square is the first step of the city’s Waterfront District plan aimed at revitalizing downtown.

“There’s some pretty extensive plans that we’re working on from a City perspective. This is just the flagship project, the first step and then each and every year hopefully we’re going to see continual improvement,” he said.

Learn more about the city’s Towne Square and Waterfront District from Invest Medicine Hat.

by Chris Brown

First Street to South Railway U-turn no longer allowed

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