Dear Editor:
Unbelievable. The traffic was unbearable on Royal Ave before they tolled the Port Mann Bridge. It was even more unbearable after they tolled the Port Mann Bridge.
Now that Front Street is closed I am starting to feel that I would be better off to just check into an insane asylum. Because if I wasn't nuts already, I am certainly on my way.
No one, and I mean no one, can imagine how bad this noise is! I can hear it in my sleep.
I flee my house at all hours of the day to get away from this noise. I sweep once a week and get a dustpan full of heavy sandy grit. I cannot have my windows open. I cannot sit on my useless patio. I can't even invite people over from sheer embarrassment of living on Royal Avenue. We wouldn't be able to hear each other talk anyway.
Go ahead, give me the old "what did you expect when you moved onto Royal Avenue" scorn. As I said, no one can possibly imagine how bad this is.
Why are we the only major traffic area in the Lower Mainland that has absolutely no noise mitigation? Everyone else has walls, speed bumps, traffic circles, something, anything. I can hear these trucks in my sleep! What sleep?!
Why is this even allowed to be a residential area? This is insane, and my other fear, besides my health and my lungs, and the new cough that I have developed with all this diesel, is: Will they really put the traffic back on Front Street?
What a messed-up council and planning department. What a mess this city has become. You guys at city gall have no idea.
Oh, and I loved the No Idling sign at the back of city hall next to the electric car chargers, and then on the other side of city hall there is half the traffic from the Lower Mainland. Most of them don't even live here.
It's unethical to not do anything to protec t the health and well-being of the residents on Royal Avenue and surrounding streets. Toll it!
S. Tanner, New Westminster
