The following letter was sent to Sechelt mayor and council and copied to Coast Reporter for publication.
We live on Cowrie Street across from Chatelech Secondary School in a 42-unit apartment building. Above us a new complex is being built that will be accessing Cowrie and Barnacle. Further west past that are Trail Bay Estates and past that is the Sangara property development, all using Cowrie and Barnacle streets. Eventually these streets will be bringing a lot of traffic that accumulates at Shorncliffe Avenue and Barnacle (not including from Derby Street in West Sechelt).
With council's decision to make Cowrie a one-way street, it seems that not much thought has been given to the residents of these streets and their accessibility to the downtown core and points east.
Turning left off Barnacle onto Shorncliffe is hard enough when school traffic is in operation and impossible, of course, on Saturdays when the Sechelt Farmers' Market is in open. The intersection at Cowrie and Ocean will create confusion and congestion and direct traffic onto residential streets.
Turning right from Barnacle and then left onto the highway is difficult at any time due to volume of traffic. This will only get harder as the summer brings the seasonal residents and tourists.
We can only presume that no council members live anywhere close to the village and have no concept of the inconvenience this decision will cause to the residents of the downtown Sechelt area. As taxpayers, we object to wasting money on unnecessary, frivolous ideas.
Alex and Louise Lenko, Sechelt
