An open house was held at the Seniors Centre in Quesnel yesterday afternoon on what is being called “the Highway 97 Quesnel Transportation Plan.”
Shawn Clough, a Senior Project Manager with the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, says they dusted off three potential alternate routes from the past, including a North-South Interconnector….
“This is where we potentially bring traffic off of Highway 97, adjacent to the Quesnel River, and tie in up by Sutherland Avenue. So the intent of that is to reduce the amount of truck traffic on Front Street and Carson Avenue.”
Clough says both bridges over the Quesnel River need to be replaced eventually and this option would also achieve that.
A second option, called the North-South industrial route, is geared to try and reduce the commercial traffic on Front Street and Carson Avenue from Two Mile Flat over to the pulp mill.
He says that takes the industrial traffic across the Quesnel River at the north end but doesn’t passenger vehicle traffic.
Clough says the third option, an East-West Connector Route, crosses the Fraser River and connects Two Mile Flat to the Blackwater.
He says that reduces truck traffic that comes down across the Moffat Bridge and up Front Street to Two Mile Flat but doesn’t reduce a lot of the traffic going from Two Mile Flat to the pulp mill.
Safety options for Racing Road and Quesnel-Hydraulic Road were also on display.
“The first one is restricted turning movements so at Racing and Hydraulic all we would have is right in-right out so there would be no left turn movements out of any of the side streets out onto the highway, so that means you’re not taking a left across two lanes of highway at 80 kilometers an hour.”
A second option would be a signal at Racing Road and closure of the Quesnel-Hydraulic access and the third option is a right in-right out at Racing and a signal at Quesnel-Hydraulic.
Clough says they are now taking in public input on all three to see which one Quesnel residents prefer.
People can provide input on-line at www.gov.bc.ca/quesneltransportationstudy or e-mail them at [email protected]