Lara Forbes has been raising concerns about traffic along Alouette Road for more than a decade and is starting to wonder if a solution will ever come.
She lives in the Westhills area, off of the narrow road that acts as part of a connection from Sooke Road to Langford Parkway. The road often sees vehicles, including large commercial trucks, driven by people looking to save a couple of minutes while heading across town.
Frustrated by this, Forbes set up a camera on her property to capture clips of the traffic. She estimates that some days she sees more than 5,000 vehicles a day.
After Forbes’ concerns received some media attention in 2021, the City of Langford put in white picket delineators in the middle of the road before and after intersections, plus a new three-way stop at Alouette and Sikorsky Road. But those are just partial solutions and have not fixed the overall problems with noise, pollution and safety, according to Forbes, concerns she feels have been dismissed by the city.
With several new schools built recently around Westhills, safety is becoming a growing concern. Forbes says she’s seen a number of near-misses involving students.
In March, the Sooke School District flagged concerns about traffic along West Shore Parkway at the Langford Parkway roundabout, including incidents in which people were not stopping for crossing guards.
“Unfortunately, we did not see any improvements in the driving behaviour in the area and were forced to relocate the crossing guards to a safer location,” an SD62 spokesperson wrote in an email. “Instead of using the crosswalk right off the roundabout, families were/are encouraged to cross at the controlled lights by Tim Hortons or down near Commander Court, where the sight lines are clearer.”
A city spokesperson says it has made a number of changes at the roundabout, including removing the boxwood hedges, installing pedestrian-activated crossing signals at the east leg and zebra crosswalk paint with signage on the north leg, and providing a map for the Safe Route to School to parents after SD62 asked, all done with the aim of improving pedestrian safety in the area.
ALSO READ: Obey crossing guards: Drivers failing to stop for children near Langford schools
What Forbes wants to see is a connector road between Parkdale Road and West Shore Parkway, which would help divert traffic away from Alouette Road.
The idea has been part of city discussions before. Back in November 2021, then-Langford director of engineering Michelle Mahovlich requested that a future road connection between Parkdale Road and West Shore Parkway be considered to assist in alleviating traffic along Alouette Road, as part of a bylaw review of parkland requirements for the Westhills development.
But two years later, there’s no road.
“The city is evaluating options and has ongoing discussions with Westhills about future connections to West Shore Parkway,” a city spokesperson wrote in an email, adding upcoming updates to the Road DCC Bylaw are set to be brought to council in the coming months.
The city is also set to roll out a second traffic data-gathering device, in part funded by ICBC, and is working on a traffic calming policy, which will be brought to the sustainable development advisory committee in the coming months.
Until then, Forbes is keeping her fingers crossed somebody does not get hurt and that the previously discussed connector road is built soon.
“Yeah, sure, a few more trees are cut down. But what’s a few more trees in this city, when they’re clear-cutting like crazy? But that gets paved and all this traffic disappears and it’s going to Westshore Parkway,” said Forbes. “It’s not going to solve the Westshore Parkway issue or help the poor Glen Lake people, but the way I see it, it’s better than this.”
In 2018: Speeding, dangerous driving a concern for some Westhills residents
In 2021: Alouette Drive residents in Langford fed up with commercial traffic, speeding