Traffic on Sudbury's Lasalle Blvd. plunges as motorists prefer Maley Drive

Intersection of Lasalle Boulevard and Gary Street in New Sudbury. (Google)

A new study has found that overall vehicle traffic – and especially heavy trucks – has dropped substantially on Lasalle Boulevard in Greater Sudbury following the opening of Maley Drive.

However, the report does not recommend banning heavy trucks from Lasalle, because it would make commercial and other deliveries take longer and more expensive.

First opened in 2019, city staff predicted Maley would ease traffic on Lasalle and The Kingsway, as well as divert heavy trucks away from city thoroughfares.

The report found that for the busiest eight hours along Lasalle at Atlee Avenue, overall traffic was down to 13,169 in 2022, compared with 19,067 in 2019. The number of heavy trucks on dropped to 58 from 149.

At Lasalle and Auger Avenue, vehicle trips dropped to 11,890 this year, compared to 18,060 in 2019. Heavy trucks numbered 42 this year, compared to 173 in 2019.

"This demonstrates that the opening of the Maley Drive extension has had the expected benefit of removing a significant number of heavy vehicles from LaSalle Boulevard," the report said.

When it comes to banning heavy trucks from Lasalle completely, the report said too many delivery routes would be affected to make it feasible. In some cases, trucks would have to travel 5.2 kilometres farther if Lasalle was no longer an option and the trucks had to enter via Maley Drive.

"While the above example may be the most extreme situation, there are many other commercial destinations near Barry Downe Road that would result in similar routing and increased travel distance for trucks," the report said.

In addition, additional enforcement would be needed to keep trucks off Lasalle.

"This would provide a challenge due to the density of commercial properties on Lasalle Boulevard as potential destinations and the MTO or (Sudbury police) would have to catch the truck in the act of not proceeding to the closest truck route," the report said.

"Based on the environmental impact of increased travel distances, the challenges to provide enforcement and the impact that Maley Drive has already had on reducing the number of trucks on LaSalle Boulevard, staff does not recommend removing the truck route designation from Lasalle Boulevard."

Read the full report here.