Since 1964, City Council has been pondering a third crossing, but not everyone believes we need one. According to Ken Linseman, the former Kingston Commissioner Of Traffic, building a third crossing may not ease the congestion over the Causeway, it may simply divert the traffic off the 401.

So can the Causeway handle extra traffic? With more and more new houses being built in Kingston East, the Causeway is bound to get busier. According to J.L. Richards, the causeway is already over its capacity. In 2004, the causeway was handling 2,105 vehicles per hour in the afternoon rush. That’s already 485 more vehicles per hour than the Causeway was built for.

But that was 2004, and there didn’t seem to be any updated statistics. So on Tuesday, April 20th from 7:30am – 8:30am, Kingston East News staff counted traffic on the Causeway. The result was 1,066 vehicles traveling Westbound into the city and 857 vehicles traveling Eastbound. The total of 1,923 vehicles per hour in peak rush hour is 303 vehicles more than the Causeway was designed to hold.

As Kingston East grows, we are putting the Causeway in danger of a failure, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of funding options. With a third crossing construction bill of $114 million – $181 million it seems unlikely that the City can bear the burden itself. Unless funding is obtained from Provincial or Federal coffers, we may be spending a lot of money on Environmental Studies that doesn’t get us any closer to a traffic solution.