Editor:
I share your readers’ frustration over the recent traffic delays in Selma Park. I am also concerned over the safety issue of having only one road on the Coast. This road can be blocked by construction, accident or natural disaster. Many areas of the Coast can lose all emergency response by a single event.
In the case of traffic obstruction by construction, the big problem is not the construction itself, but single lane alternating traffic management (SLA). Blocking one lane, especially during ferry traffic pulses, produces the kind of traffic snarls recently experienced by thousands of drivers at Selma Park. If road shoulders are taken into account, there is almost always room for two lanes of slow-moving traffic, even if half the road is blocked. When construction requires more than half the road (e.g.: positioning equipment), then SLA is appropriate for a short time. Traffic management personnel are on site to do the job. They should actually manage the traffic.
I propose:
1) Ministry of Transportation create a policy that SLA be minimized, rather than be used routinely by default.
2) Construction crew breaks be scheduled to coincide with two-hourly ferry traffic pulses, with no SLA during that period.
2) Designate a future “Upper Levels Highway” route (e.g.: the power line route). Upgrades should begin to create an emergency access route (using road design standards of a Forestry Service main haul road) from the top of the Langdale ferry bypass hill to downtown Sechelt. Over coming decades, it should be upgraded to take traffic off Route 101.
Can you imagine the traffic mess if North Shore municipalities had not designated the Upper Levels route more than half a century ago?
Bruce Woodburn, Sechelt
