Your recent editorial stated that any decision by local governments to add bike lanes or a “walking path,” (generally known as a sidewalk) is met with derision and claims of wasting money.
The writer utterly misses the points people have been trying, in vain apparently, to make.
Can the writer explain why we would need two sidewalks, side by side in the first block of Coronation headed west from the TCH? Or why they had to remove the trees to add the twinned sidewalk? I think not.
The Ypres/Queens configuration is poorly designed, too narrow for cars and passengers, and dangerous for the disabled to access the businesses or houses.
The population of Duncan over the last couple of decades has aged. Few shoppers in the downtown walk from home to shop. I would wager a guess that over 95 per cent of the people who shop or access services such as doctors, lawyers, post office, accounting firms, etc. are coming by car. Not walking. Not biking. There are fewer and fewer places to park.
Many of the shoppers have walkers or canes or other hidden disabilities and cannot walk far. Duncan is becoming gridlocked and impossible.
I used to visit Duncan almost every day, to shop or meet a friend for coffee. Now I and many others avoid it like the plague. I am supposing that the editorial writer also has a car and likely a designated parking space. The writer is clearly unable to put himself in the place of a shop owner, or God help him, anyone with even a minor disability.
It is also interesting to note that Peter de Verteuil and Michelle Staples went door to door on Queens Street asking people for advice about what they thought could make the new configuration improve. Don’t you think that deserves a little derision?
Sharon Jackson
Duncan
