Letter from Doug and Ellen Harbicht re: New development at 240/242/244 Island Highway

Re: New development at 240/242/244 Island Highway:

As long time residents of View Royal, we are voicing our opinion on issues that we see are going to impact local residents with the addition of this new development.

The traffic on the Island Highway and surrounding streets is already over stressed. Every week day morning starting at 6:30 am there are approximately 200 cars making an illegal left turn from Helmcken onto Rudyard, then right onto Stormont. These, mostly single occupant vehicles, driven mostly by armed forces personnel, do not come to a complete stop at the corner of Rudyard and Stormont, instead slide around the corner and race to the top to catch the next left turn light at the corner of Stormont and Island Highway. Thus making it extremely dangerous and difficult to pull out of our driveways.

Yes, occasionally the RCMP do set up and ticket some of these drivers, but obviously not often enough to stop this.

We see that this new development is only going to exasperate this situation. Thirty-seven more vehicles, that will join up with 38 vehicles that already exit 278 Island Highway, plus another expected 37 vehicles exiting 280 Island Highway, most of whom are likely wanting to head into Victoria or Esquimalt. These extra vehicles are not going to be able to turn left out of their driveways, but will have to turn right onto Island Highway, right onto Helmcken, right onto Rudyard and join the race to the top of Stormont Road.

We aren't aware of any thought being put into traffic flow in and out of this new development and trust that you will put as much effort as needed to make sure that this is not going to impact residents that chose to live in View Royal because it was a lovely quiet neighborhood.

Sincerely,

Doug and Ellen Harbicht