'It's really exhausting': What 1 councillor says could speed up Edmonton’s construction troubles

City Councillor Andrew Knack is looking for solutions to make the city’s construction in the west end more bearable for drivers.

City Councillor Andrew Knack is looking for solutions to make the city’s construction in the west end more bearable for drivers.

With major projects like the west LRT, Yellowhead and Terwillegar Drive interchange, road construction is nearly impossible to avoid.

“Combined with every other avenue and street, seemingly in the city that has road construction right now and there comes a point where it’s really exhausting,” Knack told CTV News Edmonton.

Knack says one solution could make the situation worse, but only for a short time. One idea is to fully close sections of road along the LRT route to traffic, so work can be completed faster.

“Ripping off the bandaid on paper sounds great, but it also could mean some pretty significant impact for the next six to eight months. Are we willing to accept that so that we don't have two or three years of road work going on?” Knack said.

The Ward Nakota Isga councillor says from what he’s heard from Edmontonians, many people would be willing to make the trade off. It could mean closing major intersections to all traffic for weeks at a time.

Another option would be to speed up the road work to 24 hours, which could be disruptive at night for people in the area.