To the Editor,
Beef to whichever combination of civil engineers and Nanaimo city council members are re-designing the crosswalks and road intersections.
The ‘bump-outs’ used to shorten the distance between sidewalks eliminate almost half of the adjacent previously available parking space, and means that in order to get a wheelchair-bound client from the back of the van onto the sidewalk, one has to now roll them out into the traffic lane portion of the roadway/crosswalk, whereas previously one could just use the little dipped edge ramp of the sidewalk.
At some intersections, it is now a virtual impossibility to get a maximum legal-length 18-wheel tractor-trailer combination to negotiate a right hand turn without having to cross into the lanes travelling in the opposite direction of both the street the driver is on, and the one being turned onto. An example would be turning right from Wakesiah Avenue onto Bowen Road. Let’s face it – the intersection and sidewalk ‘upgrades’ are not safer, or of any ‘upgraded’ function for the pedestrians or the drivers, (bus, taxi, limousine, handicap vehicles, moving vans, etc.).
The ‘bump-outs’ have managed to reduce the overall number of available parking spaces within the entire city but most especially in the downtown core, and most of those were of the time-limited free parking variety. At a time when the City of Nanaimo is giving lip service to so-called downtown revitalization, the elimination of free parking is not how you go about it.
Scott Allan NymannNanaimo