Downtown Transportation Study Still Looking for Input

By 250 News

City of Prince George Transportation Manager, Glen Stanker, is very disappointed with the lack of public interest in the downtown  parking and transportation study.  "We  did a lot of publicity on the open house and on the survey, but  we only had 92 surveys returned" says Stanker.

Stanker's department will now  try one more  time to  get public input on how  downtown's traffic should flow.  He says  his department is trying to  work out something with Downtown Prince George to hand out surveys during the Father's Day Show and Shine.  The annual car show event  has atracted up to 20 thousand people in the past so if only 10% of the  surveys distributed at the event were returned, that would be  twice as many as have been  received so far.

Stanker says the downtown plan will take into account  plans for downtown revitalization, but don't expect to see a return of traffic lights where the four way stops now exist. "I think the four way stop is very pedestrian friendly" says Stanker.  "I was concerned about the safety issue with two way traffic and angled parking, but the 4-way stop means drivers know they can't go too fast because they will have to come to a complete stop."

Stanker says while traffic seems to have adapted well to the two way  flow on Third (it used to be one way), there are still some problems on 2nd Avenue.  "We have more signage than we need to indicate the left turn  from  Second on to Victoria is one lane only, but  old habits are hard to break, and there are still some drivers who think there are two lanes that can turn left".  The corner remains a site for accidents.

"We want to move onward with developing a plan that would reflect high growth in the downtown area" says Stanker, "That way, no matter what happens in the downtown core, we will have the system in place that can handle the traffic."

Email | Print | Facebook | Twitter | Digg | Del.icio.us