No trucks yet on 75th Street
Residents want study done before vehicles get access to road
Transportations officials came out Thursday against a city council plan to immediately open 75th Street to truck tra c.
In a new report to city councillors, o cials instead sided with area residents, who demand a one-year functional planning study before signs banning truck tra c are removed. The study would determine if any upgrades are needed to handle the increased tra c.
Trucks have been banned from a short section of 75th Street since the Capilano bridge was built in the 1960s.
“Many people are really relieved,” said Lori Jeffery- Heaney, chair of the southeast community leagues association. “I’m pleased they are not going to necessarily just pull the signs and let the trucks go.”
Brian Latte, the city’s manager of transportation planning, said his o ce always intended to do a full study, but city council was looking for a faster way. “Really, council was trying to see if there was an appetite (to open the road) in advance of the study,” Latte said. “But based on the feedback we’ve got on issues in the community, we think it’s appropriate to make sure those things are looked at in much more detail.”
City council would like to open the road for truck traffic because 75th Street is the only road east of downtown that crosses the river before Anthony Henday Drive.
“It’s important for (trucks) to have direct and convenient access,” Latte said.
The one-year, $1.5-million study would in part project future tra c volumes, decide what private property would need to be bought up for expansion, map new pedestrian crossings or overpasses, and decide how the south leg of the LRT would a ect the flow of tra c. The study would cover the 13-kilometre stretch from Yellowhead Trail to Whitemud Drive, not just the section currently closed to truck tra c.
The new recommendations come before city councillors on the transportation committee on Tuesday.