Editor: When will TransLink and Langley Township council deal with the elephant in the room? (The Times, Aug. 28, “Residents concerned with traffic safety.”)
The reason that 16 Avenue is so dangerous is that it has been deliberately neglected for what it is — a major commuter route. In any other city, 16 Avenue would be a six-lane artery. Instead, we have a two-lane country road that serves thousands of vehicles daily, and it has been that way since I first moved out here 25 years ago.
Unbelievably, there are only four major roads that connect Surrey and Abbotsford — the freeway, Fraser Highway, 16 Avenue and Zero Avenue. Only the freeway is four lanes. All the rest are two lane goat tracks. To put it in perspective, the residential street that I grew up on is wider than 16 Avenue.
Rather than deal with the situation, council’s “solution” is to install speed bumps and radar speed boards. It even wished to place a roundabout that bicycles couldn’t negotiate.
The traffic situation on 16 Avenue will not be changed until council takes off its rose-coloured glasses and throws away the TransLink social re-engineering playbook, and begins to deal with the actual needs of the citizens of Langley Township.
D. A. Harrison,
Langley