Editor: Highway 17A and the South Fraser Perimeter Road need some early changes to ease the new problems of the northbound commutes of Ladner and Tsawwassen folks.
The SFPR only works OK if you are travelling east or south but it has penalized traffic still travelling northbound through the George Massey Tunnel.
For the Highway 17A commuter, the reduction of the cloverleaf to a single lane is ridiculously and dangerously restrictive. This really needs to be restored to two lanes.
To help get Tsawwassen commuters (and ferry traffic) off 17A and using the SFPR to get to the tunnel, they need to remove the Highway 99 dividers that create the new dedicated lane all the way forward to the old cloverleaf merge. The dividers can easily be removed 1.5 kilometres back to where the lighting poles end.
Tsawwassen commuters continue to use 17A because of this illogical "un-merge" that forces traffic into the same cloverleaf merge and forced the lane closure on the cloverleaf.
When a new road plan causes two new problems and fixes none, it's clearly not a good design.
Now, I read the middle lane on the 17A overpass is going to be dedicated to eastbound River Road traffic. How do we stop these poor road decisions? Do you think SFPR project director Geoff Freer would consider the possibility of some error in the road design? Sadly, I think not.
B. Reifel
