Editor, The Times:
Re: May 2015 Idiot of the Month Award
I saw Argo replacing a light standard and lights at the roundabout today. Last weekend, a grey van ran into the standard and the vehicle had to be removed by a wrecker.
With all the propaganda about how much safer roundabouts are compared to conventional traffic lights, obviously the accident was a result of excessive speed or driver error!
This brings me to the Idiot of the Month Award. It has to go to District of Clearwater for its statements in the May 21 Clearwater Times’ article “Roundabout for Sicamous”. District of Clearwater CAO Leslie Groulx has been rattling a very rusty sabre, making statements that were all proven wrong in 2013. I’ll give a few examples:
• Groulx says that Clearwater’s double-laned roundabout was engineered to handle “extraordinary loads”. Yes, but this is not the same roundabout that the MOTI and Clearwater council were trying to have installed. That plan was scrapped after many letters to the editor from local residents and the BC Truckers’ Association.
• “One of the key things … it’s a continuous flow,” said Groulx, noting the integrated crosswalks are more safe than those that existed prior. Not so. If a vehicle is in the roundabout, you still have to wait until the intersection is clear. Just recently I waited for five transports going south on Highway 5 while I was trying to turn right off of Clearwater Valley Road. MOTI claimed that there had been no pedestrian accidents there since the pedestrian light was installed. With zero previous accidents, “more safe” just doesn’t cut it!
• “The red light option wouldn’t have been a good one because of the hill that comes up. So in the winter time if you had five semis at a stop light, they wouldn’t get going again.” ERRRR! Wrong! Since 2013, with the amount of snowflake patrol that has been done with sand and salt, any vehicle could make that hill with summer tires on. If half of that prevention had been applied to other areas of Highway 5, there probably would have been fewer fatalities.
Now council wants to lobby for a second roundabout at another “even more dangerous” intersection on Highway 5 at Wells Gray Inn. In 2012 and 2013, when I was lobbying against the roundabout, I was trying to tell MOTI and council that the Wells Gray Inn intersection was far more dangerous than the one at Clearwater Valley Road.
Now that council has admitted which intersection is more dangerous, why don’t they come clean and admit that the roundabout was not about safety, but about enhancing the gateway to Wells Gray Park? I guess if council is in favour of a second roundabout, I’m sure that MOTI will be eager to hand out a contract. I reckon it all boils down to You Can’t Fix Stupid!
The good news is I have a solution! I propose that we leave the Wells Gray Inn intersection alone for the time being. We start at the golf course and widen Old North Thompson Highway, straighten out the “S” curves, and rename it Highway 5.
By doing so, we bring back to life all of the businesses that have fallen by the wayside and we reduce a large chunk of the District of Clearwater’s road maintenance. Then we start constructing the new roundabout with its circumference around the Wells Gray Inn, leaving lots of room for extra parking.
For the inconvenience that all this construction causes, I would suggest maybe permitting a take-out window at the Cold Beer and Wine Store, with a double lane access for north and south traffic flow.
While we’re at it, let’s reduce the legal drinking age to 16 and increase legal alcohol consumption from .08 to 2.0. After all, it’s not about safety; it’s about enhancing the community.
Jim Lamberton
The Rambling Man
Blackpool, B.C.
