New parking spaces near the entrance to Crippen Park would be “a tragedy waiting to happen,” says a nearby property owner.
“My major concern is safety,” says Duncan Phillips, who lives on Union Road near the Cardena intersection. “It’s a very busy junction that is extremely congested when the ferry arrives and also on weekends…. It’s a crazy idea.”
He says he’s already witnessed several near misses as people use the area to pick up ferry passengers.
The municipality is seeking public input on the possible creation of 10 to 12 new parking spaces next to the existing park sign. The parking area would be created by infilling a ditch.
It’s one of the ideas that’s been floated about to help ease parking congestion in the Cove.
Phillips says he would rather see park-and-ride commuter spaces created in the surplus lands, with perhaps a shuttle bus to transport people to the ferry.
In his letter to council he says, “It is high time that council move to address this problem once and for all, rather than adopting yet another inadequate, dangerous, environmentally destructive, Band-aid solution that continues to burden Cardena Drive and adjacent streets with the problems created by inadequate ferry marshalling.”
He suggests the following:
• Make Snug Point “local-access-only” from the entrance to Crippen Park (immediately adjacent to the information centre).
• Using the existing library parking areas, provide for, and enforce, two-hour parking for library patrons and four-hour parking for Crippen Park access.
• Reduce, not increase, the number of parking spaces in Snug Cove, and by using a small portion of the surplus lands, create a commuter “park’n’ride” facility. (The walking distance from such a facility to the ferry dock in Snug Cove is approximately equal to the walking distance from the BC Ferries parking lot in Horseshoe Bay to berth A there.
• Revisit the earlier plan that proposed a traffic roundabout at the junction of Cardena and Bowen Trunk Road and relocating the drop-off/pick-up area as a new lane on the North side of Bowen Trunk Road
People have until September 11 to send their comments, for or against, to the municipality.
