Ad - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, July 31, 1996 ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. * V8G 5R2 TELEPHONE: (604) 638-7283 * FAX: (604) 638-8432 E-MAIL: terrace.standard@sasquat.com MODEM: (604) 638-7247 Traffic trouble TWENTY YEARS ago it would have worked. Even 10 years ago it was still possible. But now the lack of frontage roads or controlled entry and exit points along Hwy16 as it becomes Keith Ave. through the city and continued develop- ment pressures along the route present an un- solvable problem. The route is simply too many things to too many people, To the highways ministry it is a provincial highway. To the city it’s one of the main commercial streets. To businesses, it’s the toute whereby motorists gain access to their es- tablishments. As each yeat goes on more development takes place and that introduces more traffic. The more traffic there is, the more clogged the route be- comes and the war stories grow of motorists who have had accidents or near accidents. So that’s why the proposed Great Canadian Warehouse Club mega store became such an is- sue between the highways ministry and city council. It’s not really the fault of the developers. Something like this would have happened sooner or later, The Great Canadian Warehouse Club at first wanted unrestricted left and right turn access from several points to its property. Although the store will appeal to businesses and groups that want to make large volume purchases and who will go to the store regardless of location, the company is also banking on the casual retail trade and wanted as much access as possible. Pretty much everybody agreed that this ap- proach was a non-starter. Attempts at a com- promise between the-city — which. wanted full left and right hand turns from the property — and the highways ministry — which wanted to ban left hand turns from the property to Keith and out again — bogged down at first. And that lead to Mayor Jack Talstra’s outburst at highways ministry officials last week in which he laid out a series of historical grievances over the ministry’s various planned and then shelved alternate routes through town. The result? Clearly Mr. Talstra and his council enacted a version of ‘‘good cop, bad cop’’ to make their point. The unfortunate impression left was of a city council acting as a sort of peacemaker but also giving the appearnace of ac- ting as an agent for a developer. That’s a circum- stance which should make taxpayers feel a bit uncomfortable. There’s now a compromise between the city and the highways ministry. It’s very much a site specific one for the mega store development. It doesn’t address the highways ministry’s overall worries about the prospect of more traffic from more development. With government spending ever tightening up, i’s unlikely there will be an overall and long term solution to the traffic problems along Keith. By playing the political card with this develop- ment, Council is signalling that each and every future proposal for entry and access along that section of Keith could turn into a battle, ~ PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link ADVERTISING MANAGER: Rick Passmore PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur NEWS Jeff Nagel * NEWS SPORTS: Dave Taylor COMMUNITY: Cris Leykauf OFFICE MANAGER: Laurie Ritter ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: Sam Collier, Janet Viveiros, Karen Dietrich & Cheri Reidy ADVERTISING ASSISTANT: Emma Law, Kelly Jean TYPESETTING: Sylvana Broman , DARKROOM: Susan Credgeur~ . CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Karen Brunette MEMBER OF B.C. PRESS COUNCIL Serving the Terrace and Thornhill area, Published on Wednesday of each waek by Cariboo Press (1969) Ud, at 3210 Cinton Street, Tarrace, Brtish Columbia, VEG SR2, Slores, photographs, ifustrations, designs and typestyies In the Terrace Standard ara the property of the copyright holders, including Carlhoo Press (1969) Lid., Its illustration repro services and advartising agencies. Reproduction in whole o in part, without written parmission, is specifically prohibited, Authorized as second-class mail pending the Post Office Depaitment, for payment of postage In cash. Special thanks to ail our contributors and correspondents for thalr time and talents As Soon as [Knowhow lo count fo A imittion, 1 Qvie School and become & professions! hockey ayer... vA , We Wie Vo ARAN AAAS ARRAN LASS =, 5 WES ~ SS SS SASS SOTA: Northwe VICTORIA — There’s hope north of Hope, provided the rest of British Columbia can convince southern politicians of it. To underscore that point, the Northwest Communities Coali- tion was in Victoria last week, teliing the government that the hopes and aspirations of their communities may well rest on the NDP’s willingness to begin negotiations with Alcan over compensation for the Kemano Completion Project, cancelled by the government a couple of years ago. Members of the coalition in- chided Richard Wozney, mayor of Kitimat, Allan Wakita, an independent con- tractor, and Mario Feldhopp, who works for Alcan, bit sald.