A detailed plan to fix the awkward traffic River Road roundabout has been sent on to the transportation minister.
Kelly Holbrook sent a second letter that calls for putting up red-on-white signs at the roundabout entrance; repositioning the speed reader board so motorists know it’s their speed that’s being monitored; and painting large yield signs on the pavement just before the roundabout.
Another step is making a double solid line on the roads entering the circle, in order to narrow the lanes, and thus slow down traffic at the entry to the traffic circle.
Kelly Holbrook, with Blue Water Systems on River Road, wrote the letter after pushing for the last few months for safety improvements.
The steps were devised after talking with Delta Police and the construction group’s engineers that built the road.
She’s also met with Mayor George Harvie and Delta South MLA Ian Paton, who hand-delivered her first letter to Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Rob Fleming in October.
“These changes are to be started in the next few weeks, monitoring traffic to see if it has made any changes to drivers’ behaviours,” Holbrook said in her Nov. 17 letter.
She said that the changes she has requested will be made and will be monitored.
Research is also underway about installing rumble strips as another means of slowing down traffic, she said.
“Let us do it right and reduce costs and loss of life,” she added.
Holbrook says if these steps don’t work, she’ll press for more improvements. She started the campaign in September after one of her employees was broadsided in the traffic circle.
“Every day, those of us that work on the last stretch of River Road before Highway 17 intersects it in two, have our lives and livelihoods at risk going into and out of that roundabout, on to what is now referred to as Frontage Road,” she said in a previous interview with the Optimist. “The new roundabout design is problematic, to say the least.”
She said that vehicles come speeding off Highway 17 and rarely slow down for the traffic circle, adding that using social media or advertising to educate motorists about safety in roundabouts should be considered.
