Lloydminster is a lot of things, and the way I would describe its traffic situation to someone who’s never been to the city is, congested.
Google tells me the size of Lloyd is just over 40 square kilometres, I can believe that. My reasoning for exploring the city’s congestion is to complain about traffic. In one of my first columns, I mentioned how I found myself gaining patience waiting around and enjoying the views. I’m happy to report that’s still the case.
As I continued my quest to learn all I could about the history of the border city, there was one thing that kept coming up. That would be the issue Lloyd faces with traffic.
As a basic point, the city took some time to grow, it didn’t become a city until 1958 when the population hit 5,000. It wasn’t until 1981 that the population would hit 15,032. In 2000 roughly 22,000 people were living here and in 2021, the population is a booming 36,508, quite a leap.
The steady growth of the city continued, and as far back as 1905, the first train graced the town.
“For years, many citizens have complained about the backlog of traffic due to the many rail crossings,” read an excerpt from Bordering on Greatness.
As the city grew so did traffic in the city, in the modern day you’d be hard-pressed to find a family living here without at least two cars. I only own one, so I guess I’m the exception.
See, if you ask me, I always blame bad drivers as the reason the city slows.
A seemingly endless stream of people plague the city who don’t understand road rules or have likely never seen a stop or yield sign in their lives. But as I’m here for longer, I realized that if you hit the train crossing at the wrong time you may be stuck waiting for 10-plus minutes.
As I’ve been told, you’re not a real Lloydminster resident until you’ve been stuck at a train crossing.
Read more: Opinion: Gold and its magnificence
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