Editor:
It is clear safety concerns with respect to the pedestrian zone are of tantamount importance, a factor that has been cavalierly mostly ignored by the majority of our council.
I would not claim to be more well-informed or have been exposed to more research than our retired fire chief, Silvio Adamo, with regard to evacuation scenarios. My safety concerns are predictable on any given day Banff Avenue is closed, namely the access/egress of responding and returning of emergency vehicles. Not impossible, EMS could be delayed at the Norquay overpass, with motor vehicle collision patients, and receive another call on the other side of the vehicle bridge, say at Middle Springs or the Fairmont Banff Springs.
The Town continues to create more and more bottlenecks. For example, near the Fenlands recreation centre with one-lane at 30 kilometres an hour. A bottleneck with a crosswalk, exacerbated by the narrowing of Lynx, Wolf, and Caribou streets and a near closure of Bear Street. The Banff block letter sign could likely be better placed in Central Park.
A lineup of vehicles stopped, or travelling dead slow, from the Trans-Canada Highway exit ramp at the Norquay overpass to the post office is simply unacceptable. When this happens, it must virtually cancel the ‘no idle bylaw.’
Another important concern is discrimination of residents and visitors trying to cross the bridge northbound into downtown, which I am told can have a half-an-hour or longer wait time.
A third concern is discrimination against restaurants and other businesses not situated in the two-block Banff Avenue core. Our town council deplores the shortage and often low quality of staff housing, but they don’t seem to mind approving patio space that increases the need for staff housing.
A major concern is also a significant increase in arterial traffic on Beaver, Muskrat, and Otter streets, which were not intended to be and are not arterial roads. Many more buses and trucks are travelling these roads out of necessity, and they really don’t belong.
I sincerely hope concerned residents will seek out the petition now circulating against the closure, and common sense will prevail in this important citizen decision.
Jim Abelseth,
Banff
