6:30 pm rush hour traffic on Port Union Road

And so I asked my Councillor ...

By e-mail on Friday May 24, 2002:

Ron:

As you will have realised from reading the copy I gave you of the Class EA input I provided to the City, I consider that there is a fundamental flaw in the whole basis for the project. The traffic studies being used as justification couldn't possibly reflect the changes that have occurred in the decade+ since they were done.

You'll remember the original plans for highrise developments and the population explosion that would have brought. In no small part through your own efforts, those developments were scaled down dramatically to the built environment we presently have. So clearly, traffic projections based on the original development plans must have grossly overstated what has really happened in terns of population and traffic.

Personally, I think it would be pretty irresponsible not to do a real traffic count on the 3-lane portion of Port Union before the poor taxpayers get stuck with the bill. Are you in agreement that before any multi-million dollar expenditure of taxpayers money takes place, new traffic studies must be done to accurately assess whether there is a problem worth spending that much to solve? Can I count on you to make this point strongly in the discussions on the project?

And I'm sure that you and I would agree that a $3 million dollar expansion of the Village Common we all believe in so fervently would be a much better long-term investment for our community - yours and mine - than this road project. I'd like to hear your views on which alternative $3 million investment would be best for Ward 44.



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