Rural Traffic Woes - Part 1

In recent years Bradner residents have seen a HUGE increase in rural traffic as commuters shortcut Hwy 11 to the freeway on Harris and 58th Ave - and industrial traffic shortcuts via Lefevure Road to the Fraser Hwy. Parents must guard their children catching school busses along these routes due to huge volumes of traffic traveling daily - at super high speeds. Trucks ignore the 'Not a Truck Route' signs. Commuters pass on double lines and whip around corners that are negatively banked instigating g-forces that threaten to launch vehicles into oncoming lanes or off the road entirely.

These concerns are at the forefront of everyday life in our rural communities, so I have started an article series on traffic issues, this is Part 1.

​Last May, I spoke with the Mayor Henry Braun on the topic at the ALR Exclusion open house. We talked about what plans were being made for the potential new industrial parks in Bradner and near the Airport, he mentioned that Mt Lehman road south of the Fraser Hwy was getting double lanes, but that section is under Provincial jurisdiction - and has no or little impact on our local farming communities turned commuter corridors to the north.

​We also discussed definition of arterial highways: Arterial highways are provincial roads within a municipality. i.e. Abbotsford has NO arterials under their jurisdiction - the Sumas Bypass, and the freeway are the only true arterials in the city, which are both Provincial. An arterial is ​dedicated to the movement of traffic, residences, NO driveways, NO stop signs, NO traffic lights and NO collector roads. 

Nearly ALL of Abbotsford's roads are municipal - the city's responsibility. Mayor, Henry Braun confirmed that  neither the Provincial or Federal Governments have yet been asked for funding to help the city build municipal roads which they do support, if asked.

So because Federal and Provincial conversations have not started yet - the city is actually leaving residents in the area scratching their heads about the City's hear-say pie-in-the-sky plans for alleviating current traffic, never-mind the threat of 40,000+ more vehicles on local roads if 696 acres of farmland is industrialized. 

Its already horrible now - it will be pure insanity for Bradner and Mt Lehman if two new industrial parks are added to the mix. In fact, "Building New Roads" is the second LAST possibility in the City's Transportation Master Plan. Yet improvements for "Walking, Cycling and Transit to Reduce the Need to Drive" made the TOP possibility. And truck traffic made it onto the last page as a consideration. So far, there is a clear focus in the city's transportation plans - the urban core.

The City might be interested to know that walking distance from Bradner Hall to Sevenoaks Mall takes 2 hours and 40 minutes one-way! And biking takes 46 minutes one-way - along roads with no shoulders, no bike lanes and no sidewalks. Surely they know there is also NO transit to Bradner or Mt Lehman!?

I discussed rural traffic issues experienced in Bradner and Mt Lehman with Mike Kelly, City of Abbotsford Senior Transportation Manager. Mike is a fairly new manager at the city - he was a former employee at the Ministry on Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTi).

At the time of our discussion, Mike was totally unaware of the nightmare traffic Bradner and Mt Lehman face on a daily basis - especially on the rural roads of 56th/58th Avenues and Harris Road each and every day. Not to mention the negative banking where the roads turn through ravines.

In the weeks after our discussion, the city repaved the 58th/56th Ave. gully, long-time residents refer to it as Beaver Creek. After this project I was surprised to see the road width did not change (or if it did, by millimetres), the negative banking was not corrected - yes, there was beautiful new pavement and the slumped roadway on the west side of the gully was lifted just enough to maintain the previous negative bank, but the nice new edging that was placed on the road edge caused the road to severely flood during the next heavy rainfall.

Harris Road near Doug Taylor Park

Harris Road near Glenmore

Harris Road near Olund

Gloucester Industrial Park provides a good example of how lack of planning affects projects such as industrial parks in the middle of farmland, built on farmland - there is no road allowance beside the road corridor for services, so the road is dug up anytime a new connection or repairs are needed, corners are sharp @ 90 degrees, sidewalks stop and start randomly, there is NO semi parking and inadequate trucking routes and zero enforcement lure truckers to blatantly ignore the weight maximums on rural farm feeder roads.

More great examples in Abbotsford's lack of road planning is the higglty-pigglety High Street Mall access, the bottlenecking Mt Lehman interchange, the residential/farmland street access to the Abbotsford International Airport, and the Train Switching Yard that blocks Vye Road just west of Sumas Way like a chronic stroke!

This is why I chose the question in the recent ALR Exclusion survey... 

"Do you TRUST that the City of Abbotsford will build new arterial roadways to service the industrialized areas of West Bradner and South/East Mt Lehman?" 

This survey is in regards to the City of Abbotsford's application to rip out 696 acres of farmland for industrial. 

Take the Survey

Have pictures of traffic on your road?

Send them to the Barker!

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Author

Heather Lemieux, The Bradner Barker Editor, Bradner, BC

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The Barker Belongs to Bradner!

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