Residents along Port Moody’s Moray Street are hoping the city’s next step to calm traffic on the steep thoroughfare will be more substantive than just more paint on the pavement and blinking signs.
Jason Ashfield, who’s lived at the corner of Moray and Pinda Drive for two years, said even in that short time, traffic on the road that connects St. Johns Street to Thermal Drive in Coquitlam has picked up, as have motorists’ speeds.
That’s in spite of traffic calming measures put in place in 2020 in response to concerns raised by residents.
Those measures included the elimination of curbside parking on the northbound side of the street, the painting of a bike lane on the southbound side and the installation of a flashing speed reader sign that alerts drivers when they’re exceeding the posted 30 km/h limit.
Last year, another such sign was installed on the southbound side for motorists heading up the hill. But, Ashfield said, that hasn’t been enough.
“Traffic calming has not kept up with traffic.”
He said the current measures have actually made it more uncomfortable and unsafe for pedestrians using the only sidewalk, as the narrowed roadway squeezes vehicles right up next to them on the northbound side.
“It’s using pedestrians as a traffic calming measure,” Ashfield said.
The city is aware the current situation hasn’t done enough to create a safe environment.
Mayor Rob Vagramov and Coun. Steve Milani, who’s also chair of Port Moody’s transportation committee, have met with residents and visited the neighbourhood.
The lane reconfiguration and speed reader signs “didn’t really achieve the results the neighbourhood was looking for,” Milani acknowledged when the matter came before council last February.
As a result, new procedures to identify neighbourhoods in need of traffic calming measures and ways to achieve them were implemented by Port Moody’s engineering department, including surveying residents for their ideas then taking plans back to them for further consultation before they’re put in place.
A survey for Moray Street closes today (Aug. 8). According to a statement on the city’s public engagement portal, residents’ input “will be included in a traffic calming study to help us design solutions for a pilot project to address traffic concerns on Moray Street.”
Ashfield said an ideal solution would likely involve more physical barriers like curb bulges to slow traffic and improve sightlines for pedestrians, the addition of a crosswalk at Pinda Street, where many local kids cross to take a back route to Moody middle school nearby, and even the return of curbside parking on the northbound side to create an additional buffer between passing vehicles and people using the sidewalk.
“We’re just hoping to see something meaningful,” he said, adding the city also needs to engage Coquitlam in the plan to create a safer environment for everyone all the way up the hill to Como Lake Avenue.
