To the editor,
Re: All drivers should get to use Opal Road, not just residents, Letters, Feb. 4.
In a suburb of Nanaimo there is a quiet side street called Opal. It is part of a shortcut between the moderately busy Uplands and the seldom-busy Rock City. There are pleasant houses with well-tended gardens and the road winds its way round a couple of steepish corners with plenty of speed signs and a couple of sleeping policemen to give a little bump if you are too fast. About halfway down there is a wonderful giant chestnut tree and of course lots of other trees. All in all a pleasant, relaxing street and yet for some reason the traffic apparently becomes excited to the point where it requires calming, so the signpost says.
I suppose there have been cases of an hysterical Hyundai or a frantic Ford or even a muttering Mitsubishi or jabbering Jaguar, but apparently it became so bad that something had to be done or there would be some unpleasant clashes. It has been said that some traffic has gone to pieces and others rolled over in agony, but this has yet to be confirmed.
Thus it was decided to make it a one-way street from Uplands to Rock City so there would be no chance of head on meetings. This might spoil the calm of those going from Rock City to Uplands, but they would have to work out their own traffic calming solution.
All went well and a little concrete island to stop traffic going up was built at the Rock City end with a stop sign, but then to make sure that calming didn’t come too quickly, a right-hand-turn sign was installed to cut people off from the far reaches of Rock City unless they first turned right and then found somewhere to turn to the left and go on their way. All very curious. There is indeed a calm Opal but now we have furious Rock City traffic going to the right to turn left and to Departure Bay road to get to Uplands. How do we propose to calm that lot?
Mike Elrington, Nanaimo
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Opal Road was never dangerous until it was blocked off
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