Dear Editor:
Putting "the cart" before the race horses causes traffic jams on the North Shore during rush hours.
If we could eliminate vehicles that are incapable of maintaining the normal speed of traffic on the North Shore's "Cut" during rush hours, it would end the twice daily experience of gridlock caused by traffic being restricted to the speed of the slowest vehicles. The Cut has three lanes westbound. One lane is for slower vehicles. Two lanes are for vehicles capable of maintaining the flow of traffic, and of course slightly faster than slow vehicles jockeying to get past which in turn slows the faster vehicles. The speed at the crest of the hill where the three lanes merge into two doesn't mean that the slow lane will magically go faster. The two eastbound lanes have a slow curb lane for multiple vehicles that have to deal with loads, for safety reasons, which ends up dictating the speed of the whole approach to the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing.
There is a way around this inflated rush hour, one that the minister of transportation appears to have ignored thus far, or he just hasn't been informed by his staff of his options. The easy way would be to ticket vehicles incapable of maintaining the normal speed of traffic during rush hours and then share the proceeds with the surrounding municipalities who have to deal with the pollution from idling vehicles.
In 2008 there was a British Columbia law written to deal with rush hour traffic at the approaches and bridge crossings in Metro Vancouver and Kelowna. The Transportation Act Provincial Public Undertakings Regulation states that: "a person must not, between the hours of 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., Monday to Friday inclusive, operate a vehicle that is incapable of maintaining the normal speed of traffic on the structure or its approaches, unless the vehicle is engaged in emergency maintenance work.. . ."
Dave Gosse
North Vancouver
