Trucks and seniors’ housing don’t mix, warns one of Squamish’s largest seniors’ organizations.
With the municipality’s newly acquired waterfront park along Loggers Lane starting to generate foot traffic, District of Squamish staff is once again examining options for the downtown truck route connecting existing industries to Highway 99. Currently industrial traffic uses Loggers Lane, but that’s becoming more complicated as pedestrian crossings are being put in place, district staff told council last month. The alternatives outlined in the community’s multi-modal transportation plan include re-directing trucks along Third Avenue or finding money to fund the Seventh Avenue connector — a proposal to build a road beside the existing railway through the Squamish Estuary to the industrial areas.
Before council makes any firm commitment, officials need to eliminate Third Avenue from the options, Laura Modray said on behalf of the Squamish Senior Citizens Home Society.
“It is pretty much the worst place a truck [route] could run,” she told The Squamish Chief.
The roadway runs past a number of seniors’ housing facility. Many of the seniors use Pemberton Street/Third Avenue crossing as their route to get to downtown shops, with Shoppers Drug Mart and Save-On-Food just across the street from the housing.
“It is busy,” Modray said. “And seniors are already scared enough [to cross that street] without placing transport trucks on them.”
Safety is her number one concern. Many of the seniors’ housing residents are visually impaired, hearing impaired and have limited mobility. Several tenants living in the Cedars Units, which face Third Avenue, already complain about noise and air pollution, Modray noted.
“Third Avenue is not a viable option,” she said. “It is a recipe for disaster.”
The best solution is to construct the Seventh Avenue connector, but the problem is finding a piggy bank large enough to do so, Coun. Doug Race said, noting the proposal is included in the Estuary Management Plan. As downtown Squamish links with its waterfront, Loggers Lane will become less viable for trucks and Third Avenue is not an attractive option, he added.
“The cost [for the Seventh Avenue connector] would be in the tens of millions,” Race said. “The problem is working it into the sea dike.”
Council passed a motion to have municipal staff look at a truck route in the 2015 budget, Mayor Rob Kirkham said. Each option comes with its own set of concerns, he noted.
“It is a matter of making sure we have given due diligence to all the options,” he said.
