The new Leigh Road overpass and roadway improvements are lovely to the eye and a pleasure to drive. It will be even more so once the connection to the Langford Parkway is finished. Until that connection is completed drivers will continue to turn down Dunford Avenue to Jacklin Road and beyond instead.
The traffic heading to the Leigh Road overpass and the Trans-Canada Highway also seems to prefer to use Dunford Avenue, especially the heavy trucks who are avoiding the obstacles along Goldstream Avenue or who have dealings with the industrial area along Dunford Avenue and Heny Ing Place.
If you were watching the intersection of Dunford Avenue and Leigh Road you might be forgiven for thinking that the stop sign on Dunford Avenue did not exist, or at best was a yield sign. There is a turn lane on Leigh Road for those turning onto Dunford, and Leigh continues down the hill to connect with Henry Ing, which is the way most of the busses take, and some of the heavy trucks. But not all.
I live near that corner. Vehicles will speed down Leigh Road and swing their vehicles around that corner as if they were on Western Speedway instead of a residential street.
Near misses are common and it is only a matter of time before a rollover will happen or the house on the corner of the block has its fence removed by an out of control speedster. I have seen buses and big rigs tip dangerously, lifting wheels as they take the corner with speed. It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when an accident will occur.
Those who should be stopping at the stop sign on Dunford are little better.
If one vehicle has to stop for the road to clear for making the turn the line behind them may get quite impatient. I have watched up to six trailing vehicles follow bumper to bumper around the corner without stopping once the lead vehicle starts moving, as if connected in one long train. Not one of the following vehicles stops. Maybe one vehicle in 10 even slows down. The stop sign may as well not be there at all. Pedestrians waiting to cross the road are ignored.
I am hoping that once the connection across the railway is done that the traffic along Dunford will lighten with fewer drivers racing around the corner at all hours of the day and night.
One can only hope.
Phyllis Griffiths
Langford