North Bay’s first roundabout almost completed

You may have seen some construction being done to the intersection at McKeown and Gormanville lately, that’s because very soon it will be the location of North Bay’s first roundabout.

Senior Municipal Engineer with the City of North Bay, George Elliott spoke to council Monday night and showed a short video on standard protocol of driving on a roundabout, and informed them on the topic and when it will be completed.

“The paving has started on site this (Monday) afternoon,” said Elliott. “The paving will hopefully be finished by tomorrow evening or Wednesday morning.”

The line painting will take place Thursday and Friday along with the erection of traffic signs, and the roundabout itself should be ready sometime Friday afternoon.

Elliot said he expects there to be a learning curve with the residents of North Bay, as is the case with implementation of any new intersection. To help North Bayites better understand how to use a roundabout, the City of North Bay will be launching an educational campaign.

“We’re talking with the MTO on Wednesday and we’re also going to be talking with the College and the University to distribute more of this information to them,” Elliott said. “We’ve already given the campus a number of information packets that went out with the student packages about six weeks ago.”