The synchronization of traffic lights through Duncan’s highway corridor and snow removal were among a number of roadway concerns brought before a delegation from the Ministry of Transport and Transit at a recent meeting in the Cowichan Valley Regional District.
At a meeting of the district’s electoral area services committee on April 16, Cobble Hill director Mike Wilson asked the delegation about coordinating the traffic lights in the busy highway corridor.
He said he’s glad he doesn’t have to drive into Duncan every day because of having to constantly and repeatedly stop at the traffic lights.
“There’s no logical synchronization between the traffic lights, and there are lots of them,” Wilson said.
“When are we going to have some kind of synchronization there which is going to let the traffic flow during heavy traffic times, like in the mornings and evenings?”
Michael Pearson, MOTT’s director for the south coast region in the Vancouver Island district, said the traffic lights along the highway corridor are actually already coordinated, but the system has limitations.
“There are things that throw it off within the cycle, like if there’s heavy pedestrian [traffic] at one intersection or another,” he said.
“Certainly, we’ll have our traffic engineers review it, and they do periodically already, but it’s probably time for a refresh on the traffic timing through Duncan. We can certainly take that request and review it again.”
Saltair/Gulf Islands director Jesse McClinton said his area has had significant issues with snow removal for the past three years.
He said that the snow wasn’t cleared from most of the roads in Saltair for 72 hours after the snow stopped after a storm struck the region this past winter.
“I don’t know what the arrangement is, but I know there had to have been hundreds and hundreds of reports [to MOTT] about the roads in Saltair and other areas [after the storm],” McClinton said.
“There’s a vulnerable population [in Saltair] and I saw a couple of ambulances come through [after the storm]. It's very stark because there’s only one road in and one road out.”
McClinton pointed out that the roads in neighbouring North Cowichan and Ladysmith were cleared of snow right up to the boundaries of his electoral area soon after the storm ended, while the roads were “mayhem” in Saltair for three days.
“My snow removal plan is praying for no snow, but it hasn’t been working,” he said. “It’s a massive, massive issue.”
Nikki Schneider, MOTT’s operations manager for the central Island area, acknowledged that the ministry did receive a number of complaints from people in Saltair/Gulf Islands after the storm last winter, and the ministry recognizes that there are some challenges.
“We are working on our deployment plan [for next winter] and we’re making sure that our plan makes sense and acknowledges all the challenges that we saw this past year, so we’re hoping for some changes as we go back into winter next year,” she said.
