This Pilot Project Is Terrible

This project tries to solve a problem that no longer exists and harms the community it is trying to protect.

The congestion and ‘rat-running’ complaints this project has been attempting to resolve arose from traffic backlogs along the highway feeder routes. Simply put, if there were no backlogs, nearly no one would try to cut through the Cloverley neighbourhood.

These backlogs were a result of poor highway interchange configuration at the north end of the Ironworkers’ Memorial Bridge and inadequate east-west road capacity in the area. The provincial and federal governments have recognized these issues and are making tremendous investments in upgrading the interchanges and improving the east-west road capacity, including the addition of the new Rapid Bus service. These improvements come at a minimal expense to the City of North Vancouver, yet confusingly, the City now wants to spend unnecessary funds on this pilot project before the positive impact of these improvements can be properly analyzed.

The new Mountain Highway Interchange has been partially open for a mere matter of weeks. Already the traffic improvements can be felt from first-hand experience by residents in the neighbourhood with backlogs massively reduced. No proper analysis has been performed to quantify this positive impact before the City is proposing to immediately implement the closure of access to Keith Road. Once this pilot project goes into place, how will the City be able to analyze the change in traffic patterns caused by the Keith Road access closure versus the interchange and east-west road improvements? It simply can’t. There must be time allowed to properly analyze the highway and road infrastructure improvements before any further changes are made in the Cloverley neighbourhood.

Were the pilot project to go forward, the City would be endangering the residents of the neighbourhood though a poorly thought-out reconfiguration of traffic in and out of the area. For example, to travel east from Heywood Street, one would now be forced to make an unprotected left turn across traffic onto 3rd Street, rather than a safe right turn onto Keith Road.

These safety issues are compounded in winter conditions. None of the roads in the Cloverley neighbourhood between 3rd Street and Keith Road are plowed frequently (or at all) by the City after a snowfall. Returning to the eastbound travel from Heywood Street example, a safe right turn onto a plowed and salted Keith Road would now become a treacherous drive down the variable-sloped hill between 4th and 3rd Streets before having to make the unprotected left turn to 3rd Street. The problem is even worse on the lane between Heywood and Shavington Streets. A safe right turn on Keith would be replaced by having to travel down the hill on Kennard Avenue. This stretch of Kennard has a slope equal to that of 19th Street between Ridgeway and Moody Avenues, a street which is closed by the City during snow events because it is too unsafe to travel on.

The feedback at the public information session for this pilot project was overwhelmingly negative. This feedback cannot be dismissed by the City as a ‘vocal minority’. Those voicing their concerns with the pilot project had legitimate, well thought-out issues that the City had no response to. Many of those who oppose the project have lived in the neighbourhood for decades, having far more intimate knowledge of the issues than the City or its consultants. In addition, the City’s March 2019 survey which showed an even split between support and opposition for traffic-calming measures has several issues. First, the survey was conducted months ago when the traffic problems were compounded by construction activity around the highway interchanges and east-west road improvements. Has sentiment changed since then? Second, the City did not reveal the response rate for the survey at the public information session. How many residents actually responded to the March 2019 survey? The City has not surveyed the neighbourhood’s residents since the Mountain Highway Interchange has partially opened, and as such has no current data showing that residents are at all supportive of the closures of access to Keith Road.

This pilot project needs to be thoroughly rethought or abandoned altogether. Until the impact of the road and highway improvements can be properly analyzed and the current opinions of the neighbourhood’s residents collected, this pilot project will only lead to frustration and endangerment of those living in the Cloverley area.