Sechelt council voted last week to retain the traffic calming bollards on Baillie Road in West Sechelt after their removal caused a public uproar.
“West Sechelt is up in arms over the bollard issue,” Candice Sayre, chair of the West Sechelt Community Association, wrote council last month, and more than 120 people signed a petition requesting the bollards stay in place.
“I think we’ve heard from the neighbourhood,” Coun. Alice Lutes said at the March 4 council meeting, calling the matter “a neighborhood issue, not a public works issue.”
“I know it slows down the road clearing,” Lutes said, “but if the neighbourhood is aware of that and comfortable with that, why should we impose the traffic and increasing the possibility of traffic in the area?”
Mayor Bruce Milne agreed.
“In my view it’s not a traffic issue at all,” Milne said. “It’s a governance issue, it’s a neighbourhood issue, and it’s about how we make decisions in our community and whether we respect those decisions when they’re made.”
While council received a large volume of correspondence on the issue, Milne said he could recall only two letters in favour of removing the bollards
“It seems to me when a neighbourhood makes a decision, that decision should remain intact until the neighbourhood wants to change it,” he said.
Arguing for the bollards’ removal, Coun Mike Shanks said the bollards were intended only as a temporary measure to eliminate construction traffic during the build-out of a subdivision development.
Shanks, who had been part of negotiations with resident groups and the developer in October 2007, said all parties had agreed at the time that the bollards would not be permanent, and recent checks with some of the people involved, including four councillors of the day, confirmed this.
Having recently spent a total of five hours at the site counting vehicles, Shanks said the count equated to “somewhat less than 200 vehicles a day on that portion of the road.” Those numbers were in line with a traffic study conducted last September by the District, he said, adding both totals were a far cry from the more than 900 vehicles per day originally projected.
In his report to council, John Mercer, superintendent of parks and public works, also recommended the bollards be removed.
“Given the choice, most people would prefer to live in a no through road, but good road design practices would not include stopping traffic at this location,” Mercer said, adding that leaving the bollards in place was “tantamount to providing a gated community.”
The motion to retain the bollards passed with only Shanks opposed.
