FACE TO FACE: What are the Tri-Cities' most horrible traffic travesties?
The frustration Tri-Cities drivers face daily is more immediate to most of us than irritation over the latest political controversy.
With this in mind, this week my colleague and I look at the Tri-Cities' top traffic travesties - those ridiculous asphalt configurations though which we white knuckle and sometimes even curse.
Port Coquitlam's biggest traffic snafu was to build the ballyhooed multi-million dollar Coast Meridian overpass without northbound access to Lougheed Highway. It would have taken a half a day and some concrete-covered styrofoam blocks to build a Lougheed exit ramp on each side. Instead, northbound drivers are almost to Prairie Avenue before they can organize a U-turn to get back to Lougheed. Ridiculous.
In Coquitlam, the biggest traffic rat's nest is the new Como Lake Village parking lot on a rainy day. It's a challenge to avoid flattening No Frills shoppers who dodge in and out of cars at the bottom of the Linton Street entry ramp. From Como Lake Avenue, one risks being rear-ended while making the required 50 km/h hairpin entry turn; and if entering from Hillcrest Street, one invariably encounters - head on - a car whose driver thinks the little blind entrance behind the liquor store is still the two-way chicane it always was.
The lot itself is a rabbit's warren, with right angles, curbs and dividers everywhere. Cars unpredictably back out of cramped spaces in all directions, into people balancing Starbucks coffee trays, or counting withdrawals from the Green Machine ATM. It's Where's Waldo chaos in there.
But Port Moody has the most frustrating traffic travesty in the Tri-Cities because it's one the city could fix in an hour. If Port Moody blocked off Moody Street just before the overpass to Rocky Point Park, traffic could flow non-stop both ways over the overpass, instead of backing up to Barnet Highway on Clark Street and to the Inlet Park gravel fields on Murray Street.
Blocking off Moody Street wouldn't affect access to businesses on Spring or Moody streets; as a matter of fact, it would provide parking stalls for them. This one's an absolute no-brainer.
There, I feel better already.
And if driving Tri-City hills didn't wear out my minivan's brakes every 30,000 km, I would likely find the aforementioned traffic travesties similarly less abrasive.
Face to Face columnist Jim Nelson is a retired Tri-City teacher and principal who lives in Port Moody. He has contributed a number of columns on education-related issues to The Tri-City News.
