On Sept. 5, Port Moody council got an early look at a new mixed-used development being proposed for St. Johns Street. The project includes a drive-thru restaurant on the ground floor of the six-storey project, eliciting concerns from councillors about traffic management, pedestrian safety and cooking odours.
Readers weigh in with their thoughts:
Drive-thru can be made safe
Drive-thru restaurants are not only are well used, they got us through the pandemic when restaurants were closed.
I’m not sure what the issue is about a car-free lifestyles. We use transit and also drive an electric car. We also like A& W so would be happy to keep this location.
The proposed plan looks fine to me.
Regarding pedestrian safety: This is easily rectified by flashing notification on the driveway when people approach; we have one at Impark lot 7 (right across from our condo) and it’s very safe.
To clarify, we live in Port Moody and we have a condo in Gastown. This condo also happens to have a restaurant on the ground floor and there are no cooking smells thanks to fans and ducts.
The upstairs residents would not be affected in this plan that has been proposed. I hope you have more robust reasons than these to deny this plan.
Denise Clarke
Port Moody
Drive-thru restaurants fill a need
As a Port Moody resident for approximately 20 years now, I find a lot of the so-called "improvements" in-progress and planning to be very upsetting and not actually improving anything.
Port Moody is supposed to be City of the Arts, yet it’s being destroyed by too many new high-rise towers and townhouses everywhere that cost us much-needed green space.
For shift workers — like myself — who don't have a credit card, drive-thru restaurants open 24 hours a day are often the only way I'm able to get something to eat when I'm heading to an overnight shift (or home from a very late shift).
All new developments are very clearly not focused on what's best for Port Moody as a whole.
Port Moody city council needs a serious wake-up call to do a better job of supporting all residents of Port Moody, not just the wealthier residents and greedy developers.
Dawn Ross
Port Moody
