Our last Committee meeting was well attended With Joe Stanhope Area G and Chairperson of the regional district board in attendance as well as John Finnie, General Manager, Carol Mason, Chief Administrative Officer, Dave Bartram Director Area H, Lou Biggemann, Director Area F, Bill Preston, Arrowsmith Community, Enhancement Society, School Trustee, Area F
Thanks to all who made the effort to come to our meeting.
The highway access petition in the Meadowood store and online here is now 15-20 pages long and growing
The survey completed by 177 households was presented the main results were 430 people reported living in those households with 371 vehicles and 364 drivers.
2,197 trips per week are made by these households in and out of our area. 1,369 the majority going to the Parksville Qualicum area and 777 trips per week made for work.
All were in favor of Highway access
We have a letter from Caroline Brown, resident of Little Qualicum River Village describing an ambulance call made for her mother in March 2009. The ambulance took a half hour to travel from Qualicum Bay to LQRV before care could be administered. The gate to the Highway has been barricaded.
We have a letter from John McKinstry, Superintendent for the Central District Ambulance Service noting the closed gate to the freeway and supporting increased access to our area, given a call volume increase and a 50 minute lag between dispatch from Bowser and arrival at an acute care hospital.
A letter from the Dashwood Volunteer fire department also favors the proposed interchange at Nahmint and Corcan.
We have a letter from Scott Fraser, describing his repeated efforts to engage the Ministry of Transport in problem solving to improve access. “Today (October 9) during Transportation Estimates at the Legislature, MLA Fraser questioned Min. Bond about the highway access. She agreed to a meeting to discuss this along with a couple of other road issues in our constituency
A BC Ministry of Highways Turning Movement survey was done by the Ministry of Highways on Thursday October 29th at the corner of Baylis and Highway 19A with peak Hour traffic 16:30 to 17:30 equaling 161 vehicles (Baylis only) and average daily traffic = peak hour(161)x 10 =1610
In 1999, a 24 hour count was done for 7 days. 148 vehicles entered the area, 200 left. Stats support the increase of local traffic.
Bill Preston of the Arrowsmith Community Enhancement Society described the purpose of his organization inviting our members to join. Each neighbourhood has a distinct identity and history, so pooling resources allows for larger projects, such as a multi community garage sale, for example. John Talbot will be the facilitator of the first meeting next spring, an action oriented meeting to get projects underway to enhance the quality of life in Area F. Projects to focus on recreation and sports, development of parkland, community safety and education, and volunteer recruitment, to name a few.
http://www.arrowsmithcommunity.ca Bill may be reached at 752-8586
We will update you as new information comes to us.