Fed up with traffic congestion, one New Westminster neighbourhood took its fight to city hall and won.
Shortly before 5 p.m. on Monday, residents of Victoria Hill gathered near Memorial Drive and McBride Boulevard to celebrate their recent success in reducing traffic in their neighbourhood.
“We’ve really all been having champagne for the past hour and a half,” laughed Paul Densky, a Victoria Hill resident. “There’s no traffic. It’s phenomenal.”
Densky was among a group of residents in Victoria Hill that had been fighting to have a sign installed at Memorial Drive to restrict commuters, who use the quiet neighbourhood as a shortcut onto the Pattullo Bridge, from making left turns onto McBride Boulevard.
The sign was installed over the weekend, in time for rush hour on Monday, and not only was it stopping commuters sneaking through the neighbourhood, but police officers were assigned to the intersection to ensure the new regulation was being followed.
“This is what this neighbourhood was supposed to be, like a park,” Densky said.
But Victoria Hill wasn’t always this peaceful.
When tolls were introduced on the new Port Mann Bridge, residents were dealing with an increasing number of commuters using their community as a shortcut on to the Pattullo Bridge.
According to Densky, nearly every weekday around 3 p.m. a line of cars forms from East Royal Avenue down both Ross Drive and Francis Way to Memorial Drive, where drivers can make a left-hand turn onto McBride Boulevard.
Densky moved to Victoria Hill about one year ago and was shocked at how much traffic increased when the Port Mann tolls were introduced.
Fed up with commuters plugging up their small community, Densky and his neighbours began pushing for changes to reduce traffic in the neighbourhood.
“New West is in between two cities so everyone has to cut through New West to get where they’re going and there seems to be no real re-route or anything to try and get it dealt with,” he said.
Densky’s strata president, Andrea Ip, was one of the residents who approached the city about making improvements to the neighbourhood.
From her home at Francis Way and Memorial Drive, she watched the traffic line up on a daily basis. Like Densky, she was fed up with the volume of cars that use her quiet neighbourhood as a shortcut onto the bridge.
When Ip moved to Victoria Hill five years ago, it was a quiet community with very little traffic.
“It was a nice neighbourhood but now it’s a mess,” she said, before the new sign was mounted. “I don’t feel comfortable outside anymore.”
A few months ago, the seven strata groups within Victoria Hill met to discuss what could be done to decrease traffic in the community. In the end, the strata groups voted in favour of installing a “no-left-turn” sign at Memorial Drive and McBride Boulevard in hopes of discouraging commuters from using the neighbourhood as a shortcut onto the Pattullo.
The city responded to the residents’ proposed plan but told them the new “no-left-turn” sign wouldn’t be installed until the end of May, according to Ip.
But on Thursday afternoon a fire alarm went off in one of the buildings in Victoria Hill. It took firefighters, stationed only a few blocks away at McBride at Sixth Avenue, nearly 30 minutes to reach the building because of traffic, Densky told The Record.
“It was a false alarm, thankfully, but … it’s just not acceptable,” he added.
In light of this incident, Densky, Ip and several other Victoria Hill residents contacted city hall, asking the installation date for the “no-left-turn” sign be moved up.
Jim Lowrie, director of engineering services, responded to Densky in an email, which he shared with The Record, and told him the new sign, which restricts commuters from making left-hand turns onto McBride between 3 and 6 p.m. from Monday to Friday, would be up in time for rush hour on Monday, which they were.
“It’s amazing, we’re all very happy,” Densky said.
Follow Cayley on Twitter, @cayleydobie
