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LETTER: Several factors cause traffic snarl

Dear Editor: I read Paul Sullivan’s column Driving Very Slowly Into a Denser Future , on the traffic mayhem on the North Shore in your Aug. 7 issue.
traffic

Dear Editor:

I read Paul Sullivan’s column Driving Very Slowly Into a Denser Future, on the traffic mayhem on the North Shore in your Aug. 7 issue. This follows another recent traffic study and District of North Vancouver Mayor Richard Walton’s solutions on the reconfiguring of the Keith Road on-ramps last year.

I have lived and worked on the North Shore for the past 27 years.

There is more to the story than just density. Admittedly there is a lot of construction happening and the workers are coming from other areas by car. (Trades don’t carry their tools on a bike or a bus.) The recent study said that this issue affected the entire Vancouver area especially the North Shore.

There are a great number of businesses on the North Shore that employ people. Do your own study and start asking these employees where they live.

Almost half of those I asked live elsewhere. They just can’t find affordable rentals on the North Shore. Almost all the redevelopment projects are going for sale. Not one developer is building an apartment block. Single family homes are being clear cut all over the region. The land is worth over $100 per square foot.

Townhouses and condos are being built and very few are being rented. The entire demographic has changed.

It would appear there are three factors affecting the traffic: The increased density bringing in more residents; the increased construction bringing in more tradesmen; and the increased prices driving the working class out of their community, who are then forced to commute.

The roads are choked so much that it often takes over a half hour just to go down the Third Street hill from 2 p.m. on. Going east towards the bridge, in addition to the two lanes of Highway 1, there are six lanes of traffic trying to get on the three lanes of the bridge from Lonsdale, Lynn Valley, Keith, Mount Seymour, Dollarton and Main. And they are all backed up.

We need a bypass over Highway 1 so that local traffic from Deep Cove to West Vancouver is not stuck waiting for the bridges. This widespread congestion also affects transit. All the buses are caught in the same mess. Schedules go out the window. Connections to other areas are adversely affected.

I think we have to slow down the pace of redevelopment until the transportation infrastructure catches up.

Leo Vanderbyl
North Vancouver

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