I am writing to share my opinion regarding to the “upgrades” at the Clarke Dr./Highway intersect.
I am a mother of kids who attend the St’a7mes Elementary school, and as it is a program of choice, several of us parents have to drive up to the school for drop-off and pick-up.
Before all the work done in the area, exiting from the school heading back north into town was a major pain. We have a stop sign, and leaving Valleycliffe was a yield, with traffic coming off the highway taking priority.
It is highly congested at the school prime time 9 am and 3 pm, and one had to be very assertive to get out heading north back into town, or willing to wait forever. It is a stressful consideration as many after-school activities start right at 3:30 pm.
If a slight break in traffic gave me the chance to go, there were several times when the traffic out of Valleycliffe would ignore their yield sign, or not see the yield sign because it was placed way before the actual merge at the curve and out of their line of sight.
Or perhaps genuinely not see me because our road was completely out of the periphery of most drivers, or they did not care.
Now the Valleycliffe highway entrance northbound has a yield sign placed right as one joins the highway, so that corner doesn’t actually technically have to yield to upper Clarke Drive at all.
In the past, I’ve had people try to cut me off intentionally and almost hitting my car with my kids in it to either prove a point, not seeing me, or just because of their “me first” attitude. They did not realize that they were actually at fault because they were supposed to be yielding.
I have been almost hit because they’re so focused on rushing to making the light, and my car coming from that direction is not what they are expecting.
I attended a council meeting last year on improving routes to school, and road safety in school zones, and I raised the topic of improving flow of traffic to include Upper Clarke drive.
I was not the only one in the crowd to have this concern. There were concerns voiced from those leaving Upper Clarke Drive and from Valleycliffe parents equally.
I was told by council that they are very aware of my concern, and that in fact, they already had plans for improvement.
So when construction began, I had my hopes up for the next school year.
However, it seems that every route in and out of the highway was taken into consideration except for students attending St’a7mes school.
The new traffic zone has improved fluidity off the highway, so that it moves more quickly into Valleycliffe. It is not great for Stawamus, or now as we honour the Squamish Nation namesake recently given, St’a7mes school.
We have lost all merging rights in a busy intersection that now gives right of way to 5 different avenues of traffic.
We got completely ignored with this “improvement”.
I am frustrated with our community’s needs completely overlooked in the planning of this intersection.
Hilary Pink is a local citizen.
