Solutions
wherever it matters

Case study: McKenzie Ave Interchange


Synopsis:


An alternative proposal was submitted to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure for the design of the McKenzie Ave Interchange in Victoria, BC on the Trans Canada Highway.

The solution gathered significant media and community organizational attention. In response, the Ministry and its engineering team were obligated to give the solution a serious consideration as well as an official response from the Deputy Minister and Lead Engineer. It was remarked that they never received such an alternative proposal in the Ministry's history. In the end the alternative solution was not chosen due to increase budget requirements of the solution, but some elements of the construction process have been used.

Background:


In the spring of 2016, residents of Saanich, a city within the Greater Victoria Capital Region District were invited to give their feedback on the long overdue McKenzie Ave Interchange along the Trans Canada Highway, a bottleneck creating great delays in getting to and from Downtown Victoria, the connection that McKenzie Avenue provides to University of Victoria and the BC Ferries connection to Vancouver, and the rest of the province and country. Residents understood the current traffic signalled intersection could no longer serve this important highway junction.

In response the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure proposed three plans for the construction of the interchange at the intersection. The proposals were met with a mix of response. Critics to all of the proposed plans were concerned for the loss of park space as well as the removal of many of the endangered Garry Oak Trees along the corridor.

In the absence of any real solution that could meet the both the transportation and environmental needs of the location, I took it upon myself to not only come up with an alternative solution, but also an innovative approach to building the interchange with minimal impacts to transportation flow and surrounding parkland. The other issues addressed were the planned allowance for a future commuter rapid transit as well as the maintaining the level grade of the major commuter bike trail. The Ministry's plans involved a major change of grade overpass.

Quotes:


"When Andrew Jung learned of the province’s 2015 announcement to build a new McKenzie Interchange, he worked for days on end to create a proposal for the interchange all his own. The Mount View-Colquitz resident is an information architect at the University of Victoria. He lives just around the corner and passes trough the McKenzie-Admirals intersection with the Trans Canada Highway on a daily basis, which is why he already had several ideas floating around in his head that could solve the solution. He just needed to put it on paper."Travis Paterson, Saanich News.

"I was very impressed with your concepts and how you have thought through them and displayed the ideas with great attention to detail. I liked some key aspects like keeping the Galloping Goose at grade so pedestrians and cyclists would not have any hills to climb. I was also interested in your approach to construction staging." – Dave Edgar, P.Eng. Transportation Planning Engineer Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.

Download the proposal:


You may download the compressed PDF from the following link:
AndrewJung-McKenzie-Admirals- Interchange-public.pdf
(6.1 MB)