Letter to Mayor and Council Re: commuter traffic on Rudyard and Stormont Roads
A petition letter from residents requesting rubber speed bumps to deter dangerous shortcutting traffic between Helmcken Road and Old Island Highway.
Mayor and Council
Oct. 08/2019
First, I would like to thank the Mayor and Council for giving us the time and opportunity to present our concerns with respect to commuter traffic on Rudyard and Stormont Roads.
During an earlier study I personally spent 3 mornings counting an average of 125 illegal left turns from Helmcken Road onto Rudyard.
These commuters are clearly circumventing the delay caused by the traffic light at Helmcken and the Old Island Highway. They cut across Rudyard, up Stormont and activate the 45 second delay on the Stormont traffic light thereby avoiding a much longer delay getting onto the east bound commute on the Old Island Highway.
This practice becomes dangerous when the commuters coming up Stormont see that the light is green at the Old Island Highway and accelerate in order to catch it.
The existing speed mounds do not adequately slow down the forgoing situation, and several near accidents have caused us to formulate a petition requesting more effective speed bumps.
I would now like to hand off to one of my co petitioners for both a firsthand experience and a visual display
Recommendation:
Based on the foregoing we recommend that View Royal install a “rubber speed bump” on a trial basis at a suitable location. (say the property boundary between 240 and 244 Stormont)
These rubber speed bumps are relatively inexpensive (about $1000.00 installed) and have the added advantage of being easily removable/relocatable/reusable with minimal damage to the road surfacing. (Brochure attached)
Alternative Recommendation:
That because the Stormont/Old Island Highway traffic light is currently activated in the mornings on a 45 second delay with a duration of between 10 to 20 seconds ( dependant on the number of cars activating the sensors) permits 4 to 6 cars to make the left turn onto the Old Island Highway.
Alternatively, the Helmcken traffic light also activates on a 45 second delay with a duration of 45 seconds allowing 13 to 15 cars to make the left turn.
We would therefore recommend that the Stormont traffic light delay be re programed to say 2 minutes which may discourage commuters from taking the Rudyard/Stormont “short cut” to the Old Island Highway.
The disadvantage to this alternative is that it would do nothing to decrease the 3PM to 6Pm commuter traffic going down Stormont/Rudyard/ Helmcken.
Thank you for listening to our concerns and we will look forward to a suitable resolution of this situation.
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