The junction of Beach Drive and Cadboro Bay Road breaks just about every rule in the traffic engineer’s book. It remains so because it is right on the boundary of Oak Bay and Saanich although, after 30 years of complaints, Saanich has it listed as a moderate priority. The solution involves the agreement and budgets of both municipalities and neither the province nor the CRD have the stomach to get involved.
It is the junction of two arterial streets at an extremely narrow angle which presents the driver on Beach Drive, including a high proportion of out of town tourists, with the problem of looking over their left shoulder to watch for a gap in the Cadboro Bay traffic while ignoring the situation ahead of them and the entrance to Hibbens Close side street. Good design would require a right angle connection.
I myself got in a fender bender when the car ahead of me appeared to take off so I looked over my shoulder to judge the next gap put my foot on the gas when the gap came t turned to find the car ahead had stopped in the intersection. There is no continuation of the sidewalk on the east side of Beach Drive as it crosses Hibbens Close but instead one must run the gauntlet of a power pole and its guywire, and a fire hydrant and are forced onto the street by hedge in the lane where the Beach Drive and Cadboro Bay bound traffic is merging. The grandchildren of my neighbour live on Cadboro Bay road and must run this gauntlet every time they visit him. I am now legally blind and must run this gauntlet every time I go to the bus stop. There are also no crosswalks in either municipality and it is not unusual to get honked at when crossing.
There has been a recent report that the incidence of pedestrian n of pedestrian- automobile collisions is rising. Here is an opportunity to tackle the problem!
Ramsay Murray
Saanich
