More on the Aldergrove border
There has been a lot of talk about the 0 Ave border crossing in the past few days (including me in The Province and on CKNW). There are a few problems as I see them:
- people waiting for the border clogs traffic flow along 264th
- the border is not open 24 hours a day
- people cut into line at 0 Ave, and infuriate those in the 264th lineup
- this causes people in the lineup to prevent 0 Ave users who want to travel east-west from crossing in front of them
- people bypass the lineup by whipping into the duty free, using the washroom, and rejoining the lineup much closer to the border
- the facility for cars coming north is far too small
On Tuesday, I was on CKNW with Phillip Till talking about the crossing problem. Our staff continues to work on this issue with the Province. I'm no traffic engineer, but it seems to me that a couple of ideas should be looked at immediately, including a border wait lane on the side of 264th. There is a potential chokepoint at 8th Ave., but my layman's eye thinks there should be enough space. Moving the traffic into a dedicated wait lane would leave space for traffic to flow on 264th and access 0. We can also look at painted bars on 264th at 0, telling cars to keep that intersection clear. To do that, though, we would need to ban southbound turns from 0 onto 264th, and invest some money in enforcement of that. While that sounds good in theory, having a police or bylaw officer sitting there for a couple of hours a day doesn't seem to be a great use of their time.
At the very least, the border needs to be open 24/7 (as the Surrey Now points out) to prevent some of the backups that are occurring. The duty free folks may also need to be more militant in ensuring that only customers are getting through their parking lot.
Councillor Richter was on the radio this week talking about the issue, but she seems to be leaning toward closing 0 Ave at 264th. I strongly disagree with that idea, as that will do nothing but add even more traffic to 16th Ave. and Fraser Hwy., and won't help people trying to access the southern portion of 264th for non-border reasons. Closing east-west routes is not a viable solution.
- people waiting for the border clogs traffic flow along 264th
- the border is not open 24 hours a day
- people cut into line at 0 Ave, and infuriate those in the 264th lineup
- this causes people in the lineup to prevent 0 Ave users who want to travel east-west from crossing in front of them
- people bypass the lineup by whipping into the duty free, using the washroom, and rejoining the lineup much closer to the border
- the facility for cars coming north is far too small
On Tuesday, I was on CKNW with Phillip Till talking about the crossing problem. Our staff continues to work on this issue with the Province. I'm no traffic engineer, but it seems to me that a couple of ideas should be looked at immediately, including a border wait lane on the side of 264th. There is a potential chokepoint at 8th Ave., but my layman's eye thinks there should be enough space. Moving the traffic into a dedicated wait lane would leave space for traffic to flow on 264th and access 0. We can also look at painted bars on 264th at 0, telling cars to keep that intersection clear. To do that, though, we would need to ban southbound turns from 0 onto 264th, and invest some money in enforcement of that. While that sounds good in theory, having a police or bylaw officer sitting there for a couple of hours a day doesn't seem to be a great use of their time.
At the very least, the border needs to be open 24/7 (as the Surrey Now points out) to prevent some of the backups that are occurring. The duty free folks may also need to be more militant in ensuring that only customers are getting through their parking lot.
Councillor Richter was on the radio this week talking about the issue, but she seems to be leaning toward closing 0 Ave at 264th. I strongly disagree with that idea, as that will do nothing but add even more traffic to 16th Ave. and Fraser Hwy., and won't help people trying to access the southern portion of 264th for non-border reasons. Closing east-west routes is not a viable solution.