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If you thought 'Peter Piper Picked A Peck of Pickled Peppers' was tough to say, try saying 'Flip-Flop Fox Funds Fun Fox Freeway' 10 times!
Gee..and I was hoping to slow LFP down for July -August to brace myself for the run up to the Nov elections, but Alberts then Coleman and now Fox are throwing out summer explosive detonations that are curiously also increasing our normally quiet and reader down summer months. The readership has exploded in the past two weeks! I will see how it goes and probably slow the postings down again next week. I will though put up another open comments soap box probably and if anyone has inside hot news/insights/columns send it to this Editor privately for consideration & posting!
Have a great summer all! Any more political explosive IEDs out there?
If you search Green Wave in Google I believe you will find cutting-edge research that documents the use of this technology, and how it has been used very successfully around the world. I think it at least deserves a fair chance, no?
What about giving round-a-bouts a chance first because as I understood it that's what they all wanted to try first then it flip-flops to this idea, just before an election I might add. What's the next flip-flop? Cops in bermuda shorts on centre raised platforms directing traffic at every intersection on 16th avenue?
I would be concerned with all those large trucks and the round-abouts. Not impossible, but we may have to consider that perhaps half those people bought their driver's licenses!
Excellent point! Wish I could buy a truck license! . LOL. Good night all!
Do we need to send Charlie back to school?
Should he perhaps take a course in Traffic 101?
Edited By Siteowner
How can this possibly work? Those lights are bound to turn red at some point, and then the large trucks start from 0 all over again, with their heavy loads, trying to reach the speed limit in between the next light. In between this, motorists are going to get fed up stuck behind a 40kmh truck and pull around him to overtake it, solid lines or not......believe me when I say I've seen it happen constantly.
Lights at every intersection is a bad idea. When 0 Ave was blistered with the now infamous 'humps' I spoke with a traffic engineer for the City of Surrey. He stated that the role of a traffic engineer is to keep traffic MOVING safely. He didn't think the 'humps' would do that, more of an obstacle course was what he called them. I don't think that lights at every intersection with large loaded trucks starting out from 0 kmh are going to keep the traffic moving.
Charlie Fox's notice of motion in my opinion is trying to squeeze a highway traffic load into a rural area 2 lane road. This is a ridiculous option in my opinion. If we need a new major connector route south of the Fraser then locate it and plan it properly and professionally with all levels of government. Charlie's plan in my assessesment seems to shoehorn in heavier and faster traffic beside my home and I think this plan is plain silly in my opinion. The motion should be rejected out of Langley's council chamber with no hesitation. Speed bumps should never have beeen installed on 0 ave. It should be the connector route.
Edited By Siteowner
Traffic is a mess in the southern half of Langley because the rural road network was never designed to handle the today's capacity. 16th Ave for years was on the provincial books as the route for a planned freeway upgrade. I don't know if it still is.
Regardless, with the $16 Billion given on a silver platter by the Feds to Ontario today would do a lot on solving our own transportation woes. Good luck on seeing our fair share out here!
What a leap. Almost overnight from traffic calming traffic circles on 16th avenue to today's synchronized slew of traffic lights along our rural road. WTF! Anybody that votes for this lost my vote.
Edited By Siteowner
Okay, now let’s all settle down for a moment and work our way through the problem.
First the "Freeway" theory. Since freeways don’t have lights, the route could never be a freeway, that being said the name is quite catchy...wrong...but catchy, so let's not quibble.
Let’s start with your first major fallacy, that synchronizing the traffic lights will allow drivers to race along the route at breakneck speeds. When traffic lights are synchronized the timing is based on the speed limit. Thus, if you drive substantially faster or slower than the speed limit you don’t get the benefit of the synchronicity. Thus, you won’t get folks racing down the road at 90 km/h for any substantial distance because they will end up stuck at the next light. Mind you, people will still speed off but on the synchronizing the lights will have the effect of controlling traffic speeds along the route by stopping the excessive speeders at every light. Also, by allowing vehicles to move, at the speed limit, you reduce the noise and exhaust from trucks slowing, stopping and speeding up and in doing so you improve air quality and make for a safer roadway and a more comfortable drive for those of us who like to drive around at the speed limit.
As for north-south access, the presence of the lights will make it substantially easier for folks to cross the road. As the road runs right now traffic is steady (and heavy) all along the route, thus folks on the cross-roads get no long breaks to safely cross 16th. The lights will eliminate that problem by providing breaks in the traffic to allow for safe transit of the road (especially at the lights themselves). As a resident of the area south of 16th Cllr. Fox appears to understand this idea which is likely why he made this proposal.
Finally the biggest fallacy, that synchronizing the lights will result in speeding up of traffic on that route. The route is already a speedway. As anyone who has driven that route well knows, traffic never goes the speed limit. Because of the way the road is set up there aren’t very many places where the police can set up speed traps and even fewer places exist where they can safely pull over vehicles who they catch speeding. As a result people drive safe in the knowledge that they can speed with near impunity. Traffic whizzes along that route at much higher than the posted rates, with the speeders only slowing down in the few places where the police are known to lurk. By adding the lights and synchronizing them, it will take the advantage away from the speeders. Meanwhile folks (especially the trucks) who already use the road regularly will get to know how fast they need to travel to hit greens all the way and the trucks in particular will stick to those speeds as it saves on brake wear and get them better gas mileage (which truckers really do care about). That speed will be dictated by the traffic engineers.
On the whole the proposal seems to be pretty well thought out. While Cllr. Fox is not a traffic engineer, it would appear that he consulted with one before he came up with his plan.
Cheers,
The issue here is threefold -
1) commuters & truckers wanting to traverse south Langley very quickly & efficiently, non locals,
2) local traffic consisting of home owners who want to safely get in & out of their driveways as well as school bus stops and starts, delivery vehicles, garbage trucks, recycling trucks, friends & visitors, left hand turns and just for use the road safely as pedestrians to visit their neighbors for instance or just to take an early evening walk.
3) 16th avenue is a narrow 2 lane road with 2 way traffic with very little roadway & shoulder room and very deep ditches as well quite often.
This green wave may work well but I can not see it work on a single narrow 2 lane road, especially 16th Avenue,with the stop and go local traffic that I listed in issue 2. It will work better on a 4 lane road permitting temporary stops, turns, entry , exits deliveries, driveway traffic, etc. to be done in the far right lane of a 4 lane road. See Fraser highway stretch near the school board building for an example of how well this 4 lane road works since they widened it. Then look further down Fraser highway towards 248th street where it narrows to only two lanes and you will see traffic back ups galore especially around peak travel times. And Fraser Highway does have very wide shoulders there that permit traffic to sometimes divert around local traffic and other slower obstacles. And yes they do have them on Fraser Highway too.
Why is it that Mr. Fox's solution seems to me to be much more focused on fixing the commuters and truckers issues as opposed to the local residents issues? The present speed limit is 60 and is ignored with traffic going well over this limit. I can just imagine how much faster they will go above the limit if it is increased to 70. Logic of synchronized lights creating speed control by drivers is bogus in my opinion. There will always be ridiculous drivers and even truckers that will rush to stop at the next traffic light. I see it everyday on the road.
I agree with the others previous. Trucks, especially revving up from a stop will still be problematic because of the Issue 2 & 3 that Mr. Fox's solution does not address at all. In fact yes it will encourage even more trucks and even more commuters. The real big issue is to plan a long term planned solution with at least a 4 lane connector road somewhere in south Langley and then to do it right.
This band aid solution suggested helps the commuters and truckers and in the end won't really even help them much more in reality because green wave or not, Issues 2 & 3 will screw it up ultimately.
Until a proper provincially funded south commuter 4 lane route is established, we should calm the traffic not accelerate it with traffic circles first. I thought this was going to be done.Why the sudden change to help the commuters? Let's think about the local residents and taxpayers first. Not to spend money that will only hopefully be to the benefit of speeders and truckers.
Put our local community first. Calm the traffic don't accelerate it and don't encourage even more traffic. Please.
It is well known that roundabouts save lives, time and fuel and reduce personal injuries and accident costs. There was a vocal group of south Langley reidents at the open house for 16 Ave in the spring that were very opposed to roundabouts. My guess is that Charlie is being pushed to take the position he has? Campaign financing is always a sure fire way to see where a candidate stands, unless of course you are like Councillor Bateman and you just put on a raffle.
Edited By Siteowner
I hope you read my previous post Blair, it won't work. I too live in South Langley,for more years than you are probably old(as Iknow you and your wife recently had a baby)and I know the pulse of 16th Ave with my fingers on it all the time.
The reason it won't work is in my previous comment, however, to add to that I'd just like to mention that the engineers, mayor, and some of the Councillor's thought they were so smart to find the solution to speeding on 0 Ave. by putting down the speed humps. It hasn't worked. I know residents down there that say there is continued speeding. So what the powers that be did was to move 4000 vehicles off of 0 Ave(almost immediately) on to 16th Ave, a road that was already sagging under a huge overload, and now they still have the problem speeders on 0 Ave. But they can't figure out why 16th Ave has deteriorated so badly. Duh....
Anon is right, there can't just be a band-aid solution to a severed artery. The traffic is increasing on a continued basis and there has to be a east-west connector to handle it. 0 avenue would be an appropiate connector as it would keep the commuters on the perimeters of the Township(why have all that unnecessary traffic flowing through the middle of the township) and not split Campbell Valley Park, the Boy Scout Camp, and there are no crossroads which would alleviate the potential for some of the serious accidents. J
Just my opinion, fwiw.
Synchronized traffic lights are best suited for ONE-WAY streets. If Zero Avenue was a little closer, it might serve as the other 2 lanes in a 4-WAY combination. Also by dding all of these stop/starts we will use more fuel and pollute South Langley in the process. Ixnay I say.
Fox is dreaming in technicolor, and Blair is wrongly in step for some reason. Every vehicle at a stop light has a different "Get up to speed" rate, especially heavy trucks, and the telescoping line of traffic worsens the situation. There is simply no way to even dream of synchronization timing under these varying conditions unless under one-way conditions. At a million bucks a crack, someone better soon get real over at township hall, but that might be a new thought.
I am quite well aware of the dangers of speeding, but there has to be some thought given to traffic movement as well. In my experience un travelling 16th ave, a steady speed of 80 KPM seems to be what most drivers sense as safe. I happen to agree. Keeping up that speed prvents the danger of passing cars on the narrow roadway. When choked by heavy traffic, I don't see any solution to that situation by slowing things down by putting stop lights at intervals. What I do see, is the same danger that now exists on Zero when motorists choosing 80 KPM keep passing others trying to stay at the rediculous speed limit of 50 KPH.
We have historically had mostly intersection accidents on 16th Ave. I would hesitate before encouraging drivers to make up time by passing lumbering trucks after each light change, so as to catch the next light.
Charlie Fox will have to break ranks with the mayor's blind supporters if he wants any real relief on 16th Ave. He will have vote to open up Zero Avenue to real unimpeded traffic again. Of course that would mean leaving the comforts of the mayor's so-called Silent Slate, but getting serious traffic onto Zero Avenue again will provide a good deal of temporary relief, but eventually overpasses on 16th will be the only safe solution to the fast growing commercial and residentiol community that continues to connect to 16th Ave.
For those who think roudabouts are a solution, traditionally they work best when there is a fair balance of traffic from all four directions. The steady stream of heavy traffic on 16th makes the first in circle rule tough to follow. In addition to that, the township engineering (Not to be confused with real traffic engineering) has not set aside enough real estate to allow for a circle of sufficient size for the mingling of trucks and cars. Check out the signage at HWY 99 and 8th ave....it clearly warns of the danger of using the circle side by side with a truck, even though the lane marking suggest that this is possible.
Sorry Charlie, your solution will only cause more congestion, and cost us a bundle in the process IMO. If you are looking for the best solution, get hold of the 2 local MLAs that have lately become palsy with the mayor, so as to prop him back up in office. Polak and Coleman are the only route to get the massive funding to have the right solution to the 16th Ave mess. Isn't their silence deafening though?!! I do recall Polak stating that transportation improvement was one of her key objectives, but alas....!
IMO the political situation in the township consists of a usless Troika, in combination with another useless back bencher in Ottawa, who totes the party line before any attention to his constituents.
Any chance to get action on a number of things needed in the township has to start at the mayor's office. That will be our choice in November.
If roundabouts were the ultimate answer in road safety, then we would have them at every intersection.
Rather, they find their application where several streams of comparable volume converge at one location. This is hardly the case at most intersections along 16th (especially where N-S volumes are low, as at 248th where the four-way stop signs make it one of the safer crossings).
The proposed traffic lights would structure N-S crossings, but would offer nothing to locals attempting to access their own driveways.
In particular, a hazard is created when frustrated drivers try to pass large trucks that have been slowed by hills or stopped at intersections.
This returns us to the core problem - too much volume and a disproportionate number of large trucks on a road that cannot safely accommodate it.
Until the Township gets creative with developing new E-W corridors, 16th Avenue will remain a nightmare.
The proliferation of NO DUMPING signs around Twp. could well include what residents have been saying all along:
NO DUMPING OF MORE TRAFFIC ON 16th AVENUE
Mute point now. 'Freeway Fox' promoter Charlie Fox, was only council vote for lights all along 16th Ave intersections last night. The rest of council including Jordan Bateman voted his motion strongly down. Cllr, Long in fact said that he felt Fox's Freeway was in fact very unsafe in his opinion. The director of Engineering also chimed in and said an independent consultant also said that round --bouts were safer than lights on 16th ave.
I suspect that Bateman seconded Freeway Fox's motion out of courtesy only. I never see him do that for Richter. But then aqain I never see Richter & Bateman meeting for a long coffee just before Council meetings like we have it from a good source that the Bateman & Fox tag team have been seen meeting before the meetings at the Township Hall coffee shop!
Does this now finally mean that armchair traffic planner, Cllr. Fox will hang up his traffic planning hat? He certainly should hang up his disastrous council armchair financial hat in this Editor's opinion!
Cllr. Charlie ('Flip-Flop') "Fox Freeway" FLOPS !!! Try 'Flip-Flop Fox For Funding Fun Fox Freeway FLOPS!' 10 times! And you thought 'Peter Piper Picked A Peck of Pickled Peppers' was tough to say, 'Fox Freeway & Speedway' motion strongly and completely trounced - Council vote defeated Fox's motion by 8 - 1!
Thank goodness Charlie's motion got shot down.
Having had a front row seat to roundabout traffic (18,000 vehicles a day - 12,000,000 in 2 years) I can attest to how well the roundabout at 5 Corners works.
It works just as well at 8:15 in the AM when 90% of traffic is headed north as it does at noon when all 5 roads have the same traffic volume. Large trucks including B trains go through with no problem. 35 emergency vehicles per day fly through uninterupted in all directions. I personally go through at least 3 times a day and only one in ten of those needs a full stop and that is only a second or 2. Most drivers can enter with less than one car length behind the vehicle ahead. One glance tells you it is safe to enter. Every day that goes past it works better than ever. You can see it live 24 hours a day on my webcam www.princessbb.com My only complaint is the landscaping. We need a big tree in the middle that we can put christmas lights on (LED of course)
Methinks,
Eager,
I can't seem to find your original post so cannot reply.
Methinks,
The predominant speed on 16th is set by the trucks that use the road. Start-up time at a light is not an issue if the vehicles are always on the move and once the truck drivers figure out the lights (which won't take long) they will control the flow to ensure that they don't start and stop at every light. Sure speeders will try and beat the lights but the vast majority of traffic will travel at the speed dictated by the trucks (as they do right now).
That being said, you are entirely correct, synchronizing lights works best on one-way streets and may not even be possible on this route. Before I say it can't be done it might be worth it to have a traffic engineer model the situation. With the limited number of lights it may work out. It may not but anything to improve the traffic flow would help.
Finally the irony of all this isn't lost on me with respect to a certain Cllr's opinion towards gravel pits. The vast majority of the truck traffic on 16 is moving aggregates that feed all the development in the region. These aggregates are no longer being supplied in Langley or Surrey and thus must be trucked from Abbotsford and Chilliwack. To complain about traffic while setting the policies that guarantee that the traffic will remain high is frankly amusing to me.
Cheers,
Blair, there are too many variables in the situation to predict good management of driver initiated light timing really. Your theory is correct though in some situations. I would not rely on traffic engineering at township hall to get anything right also.
There is one point that Charlie Fox et al have not factored into the problem. That is that the north/south bound travel on most of the langley streets is minimal, and there are often intervals of 10-15 minutes where no vehicles try to cross 16th. That should indicate that traffic lights do not have to be synchronized, they need only turn red when a north/south bound vehicle is sensed as wanting to cross 16th. I believe there are already versions of these lights working with this principle at 244th and Fraser, and at the drive in theatre on Fraser.
The traffic light system suggested by Fox is too costly IMO, and if lights are the only answer, they need not be as complex as he describes. In any case it's another quick fix for a problem that is bigger than just traffic lights. Our mayor and his supporters just don't seem to be able to see that getting Zero Avenue back in full service is a major source of relief for 16th Ave. What causes this blockage of good common sense will always be a mystery to almost everyone living with the dangers of 16th Avenue on a daily basis.
I don't see my original comment either Blair.
The proposal should have been studied by staff to compare round-abouts with Green Wave, instead of comparisons that didn't include Green Wave. I believe even Cllrs. Richter, Bateman and the mayor had supported a referral. A very sad day for our community.
Edited By Siteowner
Well, this discussion is barely over, and I heard that there was another serious accident on 16th Ave between 248th and 256th. A neighbor mentioned that there was a fatality as well, but I have not seen or heard confirmation.
Philip Till on CKNW said that there had been 26 fatalities on the Patulla bridge since 1991, and there is terrific pressure to do something about it. I lost count of the large number of fatalities on 16th over that same period of time, but it must be close to being the same if the rate is averaging 4 per year(?). There's not the same outcry in Langley Township though for some reason. Mayor Alberts (the ribbon cutter specialist) sits on his duff and will not budge one inch towards making 0 Ave fully functional again to relieve the pressure on 16th. Thia is amazing! More amazing is the fact that he has that band of slate mates who continue to stand behind Alberts.
I would like for one councillor to ask for a vote on removing the speed bumps on 0 avenue, so that we can identify by name those who support the mayor as he panders to those nimbys on that thoroughfare. That way we can vote their sorry asses out of office, along with our smooth talking mayor.
Edited Comment By Siteowner - Informed said the same about a young fatality so its confirmed. But the reports say alcohol and speed were the factors that caused the accident against a pole. Some would say that those two factors could be just as fatal on any street? Not just 16th?
Seems to me that round-abouts have worked quite well in Europe for dickens of years. Parts of the A1 which carries higher traffic volume than most of the roads in Langley combined run smoothly every day. Traffic running from east to west will stop when a car from the south enters the round-about. The opposite happens to cars running west to east when a car from the north enters the flow.
Lots of bitching from the writers but no solutions. Must be the governments fault.. Eh!
Your not listening (reading) well then are you Brownie? I read two suggestions. 0 Avenue as the east-west connector and a medium or long term plan for another route south of Hwy 1 that is comprehensive and planned with Translink, municipalities and the Provincial Government. I personally like both of these and then also get the buy-in of Washington state as well! Especially before 2010 Olympics. This can also go a long way in solving the border line up routes and issues perhaps as well. Perhaps this border e-w connector can also increase border security aspects as well then too.
Brownie, there could be a problem with 16th ave roundabouts because the traffic on this road is sometimes non-stop for prolonged periods of time. When drivers slow down to take the turn, there will be a bunching up of even more vehicles. It could be hard for North and South traffic to break in if they follow the rule about waiting until the circle is empty.
I don't know if you travel 16th, but the traffic is pretty steady there at all times of the day, and much worse at rush hour. The heavy trucks like to keep rolling if they can, and there are plenty of them to contend with.
I have some friends who use the 8th ave/99 traffic circle on a regular basis, and they claim that it is very dangerous and a fair number of accidents occur because of trucks also. The traffic is not as heavy as 16th from what I have seen of it, and it does move at a much slower speed because of the approaches.
I suppose that we are stuck with the township engineering department's decision, because as usual, township staff make all the decisions in Langley Township. Just remember that it was this same engineering department that sanctioned the crippling if 0 avenue! In my opinion I have never seen them as being clever when it comes to traffic management. One would think thet they have possibly forgotten that a large part of their job is to keep traffic moving. Either that, or they will only do what the mayor approves of. I lean towards the latter as being the real problem.
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