I had the dubious pleasure of attending the recent open house held at the Prestige Inn. It was obvious in the first few minutes that the ministry was there to ram something down our throats. It had always been my opinion that an open house/information session was held to inform the public and obtain feedback to allow politicians and bureaucrats an opportunity to make an informed decision.
The first thing I noticed was that there was no alternate plan to the proposed T-intersection. Prior to the water referendum, we the taxpayers, were given the opportunity to review and comment on several alternatives. Not so here.
The ministry has a plan, and in the opinion of the ministry, it is a good plan and now they are going to pull out all the stops to try and justify this plan, and the more opposition they run into the more they dig in their heels.
I had an opportunity to trade a few comments with two of the people presenting this plan.
I was being handed from one presenter (expert) to the next every time I asked a question that this individual couldn’t answer.
Unfortunately, I never did have an opportunity to speak to the last one on the list, the expert who apparently could have told me about the fact that a traffic light would not work and why this is a special location, not to be compared with the light at the college, the various traffic lights going into Kamloops, lights in Armstrong and all the numerous places around B.C. with similar situations. Our location is unique.
The other question, which they hadn’t rehearsed ahead of time to get their answers into sync, was why it was so important to have an acceleration lane as you approach Vernon to get back up to 90 kilometres an hour.
Hello, we are approaching a city with the idea that traffic needs to slow down, not speed up.
Incidentally, these are the same people who originally proposed the ill-conceived plan of redirecting all traffic on to Pleasant Valley Road, including large transports doing business in that area and needing to get back on to the highway and into Vernon.
I have one more question for these learned people regarding truck traffic. This plan is supposed to make access to the highway safer, including left-turn traffic for a slow-start semi coming out of Stickle Road. These trucks will still have to face the high-speed traffic coming out of the city as they attempt to find the one small slot to get across the lane of traffic coming at them at 90 kmh.
This is safer? I asked Murray Tekano this question and was shunted off to his young assistant who could not provide an answer.
I hope Mr. Eric Foster will stand by the citizens of Vernon in his comment that this proposal will require a review.
George Tribes
Vernon
