Dealing With Traffic Nightmares Over The Weekend In Cobourg

Pete Fisher
5 years ago
• Categories: Editorial

Editorial – It was an amazing three day weekend in Cobourg where the weather was perfect and that certainly helped everyone enjoy the festivities south of King Street in Victoria Park and the harbour area.
Every year traffic is an issue.  Although problematic, you could say it’s nice to have traffic problems because you realize the success of the event.

A number of vehicles received tickets for parking in areas that were, well, no-brainer spots not to park.  In front of hydrants, drive-ways and basically areas where the sign said, “no parking.”

A few vehicles were towed.  Meter parking in downtown and other areas was a freebie for visitors.

When the fireworks ended on Monday evening a vehicle was heading north on Church Street south of Queen Street.  When notifying the driver he was heading the wrong way on a one-way street, his comment was “oh really.”

After proceeding to do a u-turn/three-point turn (or more) that likely lasted longer than the fireworks (slight exaggeration) the driver was once again heading in the right direction.

Over the years, the town has worked to solve the problems of traffic as best they can.  McGill Street south of King Street switches to a One Way going north for the festival instead of going south like it does the rest of the year.

Certain streets are closed off – in some cases, we’re not sure why.

Albert Street from Third Street to Division Street was closed for the three days of the festival which made things problematic.  For people heading south on Third and who wanted to use the parking lot behind Victoria Hall, they had to pull a “no-no” by going around the barricades that were blocking off the street.

Queen Street from McGill Street to Church Street was also blocked off, along with McGill Street south of Queen.

Which essentially means for anyone heading south on Division Street from King Street they had no choice but to turn left onto Queen and again, no choice but to head north on McGill then try to break free at King Street.

In previous years, Queen Street was blocked off by Victoria Park because there were events happening north of Queen Street in Victoria Park.  But for the last few years there has been nothing happening.  So why close it off?

Same with Albert Street, behind Victoria Hall.  There seemed to be no reason to shut down Albert Street from Third Street to Church Street.  With the volume of traffic over the weekend, there wouldn’t have been anyone going at any high rate of speed and it certainly would have helped clear the congestion of traffic.