Congratulations to Langford council and engineering staff for creating a traffic nightmare that affects the taxpaying residents of the downtown core.
Since the opening of the Peatt Road and Station Avenue intersection there have been a number of exchanges with council from the neighbourhood complaining about the traffic, the disturbance, noise and hazards it has created. That is now compounded with a bus exchange where partiers hang out until all hours of the night.
In my dealings with council and the engineering department, a viable cost effective solution to resolve the U-turn concern was brought forward, and simply dismissed with, “the traffic just needs to get used to the change in traffic pattern.”
How long does that take? In the past seven minutes I have witnessed 12 vehicles make illegal U-turns in my driveway and on the shoulder of the street. During the week cars line up to make turns. A permanent etching of the turns is now present on the road.
Motorists are forced to make an illegal move to continue down Station Avenue as it no longer goes from Veterans Memorial Parkway to Jacklin Road due to the new bus exchange. Motorists must turn right from Station, on to Peatt Road and then U-turn on Orono Avenue.
This redesign is a hazard for pedestrians and other motorists. Twice this year Orono Avenue has had to be regraded on the shoulders. I appreciate that the mayor and council wants to beautify Langford for residents and visitors to the West Shore.
However I disagree with the engineering department that there is no inexpensive “fix” to this problem. If we can afford to use taxpayers dollars to build a Bellagio style fountain with music and a “Disneyland” sign to the city surely we can fix a traffic pattern concern.
Louise Oetting
Langford