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Traffic expert not neededRe Traffic safety inspector to aid Whitehorse (The News, July 21):The Yukon News reported that “renowned”…

Traffic expert not needed

Re Traffic safety inspector to aid Whitehorse (The News, July 21):

The Yukon News reported that “renowned” road safety engineer, Paul de Leur, is coming up from Vancouver to help fix some local traffic glitches.

I’m guessing he’ll suggest the following measures:

Change the speed limit through Rabbit’s Foot Canyon to 70 kilometres per hour.

(It’s only 2.2 kilometres — driving it at 90 only gets you through that stretch 28 seconds sooner. Isn’t it worth 28 seconds to be safer?)

Create a barrier between the Kopper King parking area and the highway. Big boulders would be nice.

Have only one lane that proceeds straight on the Alaska Highway at the Hamilton Boulevard/Two Mile Hill intersection.

Having the second lane, as it is currently designed, just encourages high-speed passing on the right.

In the westbound Alaska Highway lanes at that intersection create a longer right-turn lane for drivers turning down Two Mile Hill, and build a traffic divider between it and the through lane.

This will help oncoming drivers who are turning left down Two Mile Hill to see more clearly the intentions of those — too many — drivers who don’t use their turn signals.

A similar traffic barrier could be built on the Alaska Highway where drivers coming up Two Mile Hill turn right onto the Alaska Highway West.

A longer merge lane, which flows into a single lane of westbound traffic will, again, discourage aggressive passing on the right, and will give more time for merging drivers to take note of cars behind them.

As for the intersection of Second Avenue and Fourth Avenue, one would think local traffic engineers would have learned a lesson from the days when there was no traffic light at Second and Quartz Road.

Having two lanes turning left, unless it is only permitted on a green arrow, doesn’t work.

I would suggest getting rid of the second left turn lane at the intersection of Second and Fourth.

To reduce the number of drivers wanting to turn left at that intersection, the city could add a left turn signal at Fourth and Ogilvie.

The left-turn lane is already there but is not used much, because it’s too difficult to get through that intersection as it now stands.

I’ll be interested to see if de Leur’s $5,000 to $10,000 worth of advice to the city is any different than my free advice.

Dianne Homan

Whitehorse