Editor:
The AC/DC song “Highway [from] Hell” was a fitting sing-along song as I was stopped – along with hundreds of other vehicles – by what I later found out was a road accident that blocked all traffic in and out of Gibsons. There was no getting around it and it took over two hours to get the traffic moving.
Of course, I thought of the many calls for a bypass highway, and many other versions of bigger and better. Over the years I have driven on our “highway” in all kinds of grim conditions – ice, fog, snow, driving rain at night, you name it – and I was always amazed that we haven’t had more frequent and more serious accidents.
The vastly improved stretch around Joe Road is a hint of what could be but is not likely to happen elsewhere. It seems to be saying this is what a real highway looks like. Enjoy it for 800 metres and then it is back to hyper vigilance for garbage trucks, cars turning from hidden driveways, deer (they’re not just in your yard trying to clear cut your garden), bears, bikes, debris and anything else you can think of and not think of.
This might be the time to rethink all the “more, more, more” attitude and go for less? Sunshine Coast Road: speed limit 55 km/hour. Love it or leave it. Oh, and please, please when you are stuck in a traffic jam or ferry line up don’t keep idling, it just adds insult.
I would also suggest that this is the time to replace the prolific sticker: Sunshine Coast. Not an Island. The new version: Sunshine Coast Highway. Not a Highway.
Alan Sirulnikoff, Gibsons
