Safety concerns close exit province previously deemed safe

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After assuring residents last summer that the Liverpool Street exit off the Vanier Highway heading into Fredericton met all safety standards, the province is now closing it due to safety concerns.

In a news release Thursday, Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Richard Ames announced the off-ramp will be closed as of Monday at 9 a.m.

“I have concerns about the safety of not only the travelling public using the exit, but also the safety of those living in the immediate area of the exit ramp,” Ames said in the release. “After further review, action needed to be taken, so the exit ramp is being closed.”

The province said the move follows a safety review by an outside contractor earlier this year, which “found several design elements of the exit were substandard.”

That’s not what the province said last summer, when both local MLA David Coon and resident Michelle Paquin, who lives adjacent to the off-ramp into the neighbourhood, complained of regular crashes due to cars exiting quickly on the sudden, sharp turn.

“It’s extremely dangerous,” Coon said at that time. “Clearly, something needs to be done … there’s no indication that you’re not going off on a ramp, there’s no indication you’re doing a 90-degree turn, or that you’re ending up in a residential neighbourhood.”

Fredericton police data backed up those complaints, with four crashes reported there in 2021, nine in 2022 and seven as of August 2023.

At that time, DTI spokesperson Tyler McLean said the department declined to make any changes after a review of the site found it met all DTI standards “including ramp design, geometry, signs and placement, and illumination.”

In Thursday’s news release, Ames said the department “reviews site-specific issues when they are elevated by concerned residents,” but didn’t say what prompted this latest review, or why previous reviews didn’t raise the same safety concerns.

In an emailed response to those questions, department spokesperson Tyler McLean would only say the study was conducted “in light of ongoing concern” but didn’t indicate why this review had different results than past studies.

Coon, meanwhile, said he was surprised by the move altogether, as he wasn’t contacted about the third-party review or the decision to close the off-ramp, and pointed out that recent improvements to the interchange – including larger ramp speed limit signs, lighting upgrades, and black and yellow chevron signs to mark the sharp turn – seemed to have made the off-ramp safer in recent months.

“I’ve advocated for a long time with residents on Liverpool and the surrounding side streets to improve the safety of that exit,” he said Thursday. “That had finally been achieved. Those were important improvements that made it way safer than it was. The way it used to be was wholly inadequate.

“The minister hasn’t even shared the study that was being done, which I didn’t know was being done, so we could see what conclusion was reached by the company who did the study.”

— with files from Savannah Awde