A petition with more than 2,200 names — and growing — requesting action on local traffic woes was presented to Sooke council this week.
Sooke Chamber of Commerce president Tracy Snow, who handed in the petition created by Sooke business owner Susan Jones, said she has lived in the community for 35 years and has never seen the traffic in worse shape.
“It’s been getting worse the last couple of years,” Snow said Tuesday.
The temporary closure of Charters Road for repairs — work is expected to last until October — has made the problem more noticeable, she said. “That’s when we started seeing those excessive backups.”
Both the municipality and the province have made efforts to deal with road issues in the past “but Sooke’s growth has been so incredible that we really need to do more going forward with our infrastructure,” Snow said.
The District of Sooke has said that discussions with the Ministry of Transportation about the congestion are ongoing, but issues remain despite $87 million for realignment and safety work on Sooke Road that began in 2021.
Snow said that short-term measures could include cutting a driveway through district-owned property on Wadams Way behind Western Foods or putting in a 2-6 p.m. no-left-turn lane from Edward Milne Road onto Sooke River Road.
In the mid-term, she would like to see the Throup Road connector, which would provide an alternative travel route from Phillips Road, completed. The project is currently in the design stage and identified in 2027 of the five-year financial plan, according to the district.
Snow said this week’s council meeting also led to a suggestion that some form of transportation advisory committee be created with a range of local groups, including the T’Souke Nation, the Sooke School District, the Sooke Builders Association and the chamber of commerce.
“This is what we were wanting so were glad to hear it,” she said. Sooke Mayor Maja Tait said there was also discussion on trying to get the province to ease up on Sooke’s requirements coming from Bill 44, or the Housing Supply Act, which allows housing targets to be set for municipalities and directives to be given relating to bylaws and permits.
The request will likely be made with a letter “just recognizing that we are building and providing units, but our tranportation is causing a severe gridlock in our community,” she said.
“So the capacity to just bring in more units like that is a challenging one.”
The traffic petition is at change.org/p/petition-immediate-and-future-solutions-to-traffic-congestion-between-langford-sooke.
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