A Lake Country resident says with the increase in traffic on Pretty Road due to development, the road has become unsafe.
On Tuesday night, Susan Andrew presented three petitions to city council during a regular meeting, each with about 20 signatures requesting traffic-calming speed bumps, street lights and sidewalks on the road.
With the approvals by council of the new Turtle Bay crossing and multiple subdivisions and duplexes in the area, the traffic will only increase and the road is not fit to handle that volume of traffic, said Andrew.
“Many people who use that road don’t live on it and they use it to travel from point A to B,” she said.
When looking at the transportation report from 2014 on the district’s website, there is no mention of improvement or upgrade plans for Pretty Road, said Andrew.
“In my 13 years of living on this road, we have seen and felt the volume of traffic increase, which initially started with Tim Hortons opening up. (The road’s current state is) no longer suitable and no longer appropriate. The road needs to be upgraded.”
Andrew outlined some of the dangers with the current state of the road.
“In its current state, it’s a rural road. It’s narrow, it has no street lights, it has no pedestrian or bike lanes, there’s very little street parking available and there’s little room for two vehicles to pass,” she said. “We know how frequently people travel at excessive speeds on our road and we do know how unsafe it is to walk along that road.”
In creating the transportation report in 2014, engineering probably didn’t envision the traffic increase in that area, which is why the road isn’t on the priority list, “but that certainly has changed,” said Mayor James Baker.
Chief administration officer Alberto De Feo said the district would like to get together with the neighbourhood to work on a mid to long-term solution.
Coun. Bill Scarrow commended Andrew for bringing the issue to council, but there are roads in Lake Country that need just as much attention as Pretty Road, he said.
The neighbourhood didn’t have an issue with the state of the road in the past, but that’s changed because of development, said Andrew.
With the growth in the district adding up to 1,200 people a year, it’s an ongoing issue, said Scarrow.
tag
