It didn’t evaporate, it just moved
Several letter writers have recently based their support of the proposed reduction of traffic lanes on McKenzie Avenue on a blanket acceptance of the theory of traffic evaporation.
They obviously haven’t read the specialized articles on the subject in great depth, or they would have noticed that in many of them it is stated quite clearly that the conclusions reached are dependent on local conditions and geography and will not apply everywhere.
“It cannot be asserted that every proposal for giving more road space to buses, cyclists or pedestrians will be problem-free” to quote one example.
In Victoria, we have a ready means of testing whether or not traffic evaporation will work here.
Just ask the residents of Gonzales, Fairfield and Rockland if traffic has evaporated from Foul Bay Road, Fairfield Road, Oak Bay Avenue, Rockland Avenue, St. Charles Street and Cook Street since the closure of Richardson and Vancouver streets to car traffic.
John Weaver
Victoria
Let’s evaporate even more autos
Traffic evaporation: A term brought to you by the same folks who coined “atmospheric river.”
For McKenzie auto lane reduction, let’s move right to one lane alternating. Even more auto traffic will evaporate.
You’re welcome, everyone.
Jeff Tipping
Colwood
Instead of the road work, pay for public transit
So, as a letter said, “we’ve known about traffic evaporation for 30 years.”
May I then ask: Why did we build the round-about folly that serves the airport; why did we build the McKenzie interchange; why did we widen Sooke Road?
We’ve spent hundreds of millions on these projects, money that would have financed an efficient, effective public transit system which could serve all in the community.
David Cohen
Victoria
Fundamental flaw in Saanich planning
As a former planning director of Saanich, may I offer the following comment: In Greater Victoria, Saanich has, until now, been able to avoid most of the nonsense associated with the City of Victoria.
The recent plans announced by Saanich for a remake of the Quadra-McKenzie-Shelbourne corridor change all that.
It is common planning technique in growing urban areas to establish high density residential and commercial nodes at major public transit hubs. Vancouver is a good example.
The Saanich proposal has two major flaws:
First, McKenzie does not just service the proposed hubs at Quadra and Shelbourne, but acts as the main access between the Western Communities and the University of Victoria.
Secondly, the idea that you can provide high-speed public transit in dedicated lanes and use the rest of the right of way for all other traffic is absurd. Bike lanes, while important, should not occupy major arterial routes as it simply forces car and truck traffic to wander through residential areas. Bike traffic furthermore only serves a small percentage of the population.
High-speed transportation is not a municipal function and works best when it has its own right of way as the Vancouver Skytrain system does.
We will have major construction and upgrading of underground services taking place in the McKenzie-Quadra area.
Even if a dedicated public transit system existed, using the rest of McKenzie for bike and single lane vehicular traffic each way, it would be a guaranteed mess for a long time indeed.
Tom Orr-Loney
Victoria
Bring on all of these road improvements
Absolutely, McKenzie Avenue should be “fixed” so that it looks like Fort Street, which looks like a clown designed it, or Shelbourne Street, which has been out of commission for over two years because of all the improvements.
And be sure to put in lots of cement curbs and bike lanes. Everybody in Victoria loves those curbs.
And how about a few more “no left turn” signs, so that everybody has to drive past their turn, make a U-turn, and try to get back into traffic.
And never mind that police and ambulances can’t get through because cars are stuck and can’t move to the side. Just put bike lanes and curbs everywhere you can, and don’t listen to all those crabby people who say they can’t ride a bike or walk very far.
Helen Schmidt
Victoria
We need more capacity on our roads
Regarding the longer term future of McKenzie Avenue through Saanich: We already have a single-lane restriction on a mostly divided Trans-Canada Highway through Goldstream Park.
I don’t see these drivers abandoning their cars to cycle or use the bus. We would all be better off with a new properly designed four to six lane Trans-Canada Highway that could accommodate express buses and eventual rail.
We need our major roads to carry high volumes of traffic. McKenzie is one of those major roads. The university has already reduced on campus parking from some 5,800 spaces in the early 1990s to something closer to 4,000 today, thanks to the U-Pass transit program that started in 1999.
The first LRT study was done in 1993. Cost back then $325 million. Same routing as Erinn Pinkerton’s study half a dozen years ago.
It needs to be built.
I believe that if we were an amalgamated region that we would probably already be half-way through an LRT construction project. Most other cities with LRT projects never got the development friendly interests in the suburban end of the LRT line.
We have had that in spades. Can you ever imagine a more development-friendly area than Langford has been.
We just never got those same interests in Victoria and Saanich to drive the project into becoming a reality.
Chris Foord
Oak Bay
Intersections can restrict traffic flow
In recent letters and editorials about Saanich’s draft proposals for the McKenzie and Quadra areas the theory that more lanes means better traffic, and therefore fewer lanes means worse traffic, has been regularly assumed. This is a common misconception that is often unquestioned.
For urban areas, traffic flow is governed by intersecting capacity (how many cars make it through the intersection per unit of time), not lane capacity (how many cars can travel through a section of road per unit of time.)
Adding lanes can actually reduce intersection capacity, as more lanes require wider intersections, which take longer for vehicles to clear, and pedestrians to walk across, increasing light periods.
The result is more lanes of stopped cars and worse traffic flow.
The capacity of one lane without intersections or driveways far exceeds any of the intersections in the area. We need intersections and driveways, but we should be careful where, how, and how many.
Perhaps the biggest improvement to traffic could be an overpass for cyclists and pedestrians for the Lochside Trail at McKenzie and Borden and improvements in access to the Saanich Centre mall.
Arthur Taylor
driver and cyclist
Saanich
Massive backups when lanes were closed
Plans to narrow/eliminate lanes on McKenzie already have examples of blockage. Recent road work closing one lane on McKenzie near Shelbourne, led to massive backups.
Leaving from Finnerty and Arbutus at 11:35 a.m. for a noon appointment at Tuscany Village, less than one kilometre away, I arrived 35 minutes later (late).
The blockage on Gordon Head Road was to Feltham Road. No one could clear the road to turn onto McKenzie as it was blocked from UVic traffic.
We have limited exits from this area. In the event of fire in our heavily wooded area, where is our egress?
A requirement, per code, for buildings to have safe exits, does not seem to exist for roadways.
I wonder what the fire departments, ambulance and service vehicles think of these plans to eliminate lanes?
These plans put the “hearse before the cart.”
Melody Staples
Victoria
McKenzie is already full for much of the day
I have always had an interest in urban planning. I read the 148-page October 2024 Draft Quadra McKenzie Plan and completed the online survey with the selected questions.
The plan is well-presented and most of the concept ideas are good. The one area that is a major concern is the proposed removal of 50% of the vehicle traffic lanes along McKenzie from Highway 17 to the University of Victoria.
The proposal to have a dedicated lane for transit or as a HOV lane would be reasonable if another lane is created for transit. To take away a vehicle lane for transit when the transit users are less than 10% of the people using McKenzie is a huge mistake.
Many of those transit users are university students who are not likely permanent residents. There was no question in the survey about the removal of 50% of the vehicle lanes as the draft plan tries to hide that information.
What about all the seniors who have arthritis or other physical issues and cannot easily walk six blocks to a transit stop?
We need to get to our doctor’s office on time and do our shopping with our vehicles. If you are on McKenzie now at 5 p.m., you are waiting three lights to get through Quadra.
McKenzie is very full most of the day and to remove a vehicle lane in each direction will create major traffic problems and road rage. The planners need to consider McKenzie users other than the university students and expand McKenzie to accommodate a transit lane if a dedicated transit lane is practical.
To remove 50% of the vehicle lanes along McKenzie for designated bus lanes is a serious mistake.
Jim Riches
Saanich
Consider consequences of those decisions
Much has been written on replacing two of the four car lanes on McKenzie Avenue with bus lanes. The root cause of the problem has been the enormous increase in population of the Western Communities in the past couple of decades.
Provision of a proper transport system, both road and mass transit, should have been part of this expansion. Unfortunately, our leaders have failed.
The City of Victoria, when planning the new Johnson Street Bridge, decided to eliminate the existing rail component, thus preventing a commuter railway linking downtown Victoria with the Western Communities.
The building of separated bicycle lanes throughout the region, replacing painted bicycle lanes, narrows the roadways in many places making it difficult for emergency vehicles to pass through.
Municipalities, pushed by the provincial government, allow developers to build almost to the front property line. This means that the roadway allowance cannot be increased to allow inclusion of light rail on major roads.
All these issues are caused by not taking a holistic view, i.e. not thinking of all consequences of decisions taken.
Perhaps amalgamation of Victoria region would prevent at least some poor decisions, especially if we voted for non-ideological candidates.
Kenneth Mintz
Victoria
Not the place for more housing
Regarding the development of highrises along McKenzie east of the Pat Bay Highway, not only is it lunacy to build adjacent to ecologically valuable wetlands, but it is lunacy to allow higher populations on Vancouver Island as opposed to the mainland, where there are many areas with less ecological climate benefit than in our coastal regions.
If we must host more population, rather than provide for that we already have, let us build where darker non-reflective unforested minimal growth occurs.
While on the topic of municipal-provincial development activities, I find it sad but amusing that there is a prospect of fewer car lanes on McKenzie while valuable mature trees were recently removed and the road widened on Shelbourne.
The answers to our inevitably growing discomforts and lower disposable incomes include smaller homes and cars, even lower reproduction rates, and travel abroad by television viewing rather than plane and cruise ship.
Glynne Evans
Saanich
Foreign students are not cash cows
In 1966, the provincial government began the establishment of regional community colleges to better serve B.C. students closer to their homes.
Somehow, the mission has changed. Why are we providing educational opportunities for foreign students?
$35 million in foreign student tuition budgeted in 2024: about $16,000 per each of 2,200 students expected.
Every student renting accommodation, helping to create a crisis in housing for B.C. students looking for accommodation.
It’s about time that we stopped using foreign students as cash cows in our publicly funded institutions.
And I doubt if any foreign students are enrolled in massage therapy at $86,000 per student.
Bill Burns
Victoria
Demolition bylaws should be enacted
Re: “Two historic Beach Drive homes being demolished,” Nov. 9.
Two weeks ago, I spoke at the inaugural Saanich Town Hall, asking Saanich council to enact a demolition bylaw that would forbid the wanton destruction of any homes or buildings (like the two Bankers Row heritage homes in Oak Bay).
It should be a requirement that every effort is made to first try to move the homes to a new location or, failing that, deconstruct the home for re-use of lumber, flooring, fixtures, etc. in a new home.
Oak Bay, without a demolition bylaw in place, has no legal obligation to prevent the callous and immoral destruction of these two beautiful homes while so many in our city are homeless and our landfill is nearing capacity. Shame on all of us!
Jim Pine
Victoria
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