Bragg Creek and Kananaskis are popular. Goes without saying, but I just did. That means, people like to visit. That means traffic at the Stop sign in the hamlet can get pretty ugly. There’s a plan for that. A Traffic Circle. Alberta Transport has a plan. It’s similar to the traffic circle at Highway 8 and Highway 22. That used to be a major problem too. But, no more. Traffic flows through there, almost uninterrupted. It’s so cool.

The Stop signs on Highway 22, White Avenue, Balsam Avenue and Burnside Drive don’t cause too many problems most of the time. Locals know that they can turn left from White Avenue, onto Burnside and then onto Balsam, while the people who want to turn left from 22 southbound can continue on their merry way. Same for the HWY 22 traffic going north. It’s a bit like the Mounties musical ride. I’m not aware of many collisions at the corner, but I know there are long lines of traffic on busy weekends and I know people are very frustrated.

The Tsuut’ina own that little triangle of land in the middle of all that. It’s a great location for them to sell stuff to the people in all the vehicles passing buy. Last fall they sold fresh corn. Now they seem to be selling wood products. But, you can bet they have plans for other enterprise. They’re pretty good at that.

I took the photos accompanying this article on June 18, 2017. Just a normal weekend. On the May Long Weekend, May 24, the RCMP were there to direct traffic. They were great. Long lines of vehicles flowed through the intersection, under their control. But they can’t be there all the time and when they’re not – well just be patient.

There are other plans in the works. One for rebuilding the Provincial Recreation Area in the Elbow Valley of Kananaskis (they seem to be working on that). Also, the County of Rocky View has a “Revitalization” plan to help Bragg Creek recover from the flood. A nice idea, but it could actually destroy Bragg Creek. There’s another plan to build a dry dam in Springbank. Those last two are way bigger than me and I’m glad I’m not involved in either.

But, the Traffic Circle is kind of a no brainer. Let’s get it done.