It was a comment from the back of the room that adequately summed up the feelings of residents of the Township of Spallumcheen's McLeod subdivision.
Council and staff hosted a town hall meeting at the township hall for McLeod residents in regards to highway access from the subdivision Monday, Aug. 18, that was supposed to run for an hour, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. That was to be followed by a 30-minute question-and-answer session.
Fed and watered with free hamburgers and beverages provided by the 1st Armstrong Scout troop, and fed up waiting, the residents encouraged council to start the Q and A earlier than advertised. Council and staff obliged.
As the overflow crowd of close to 150 crammed into council chambers, Mayor Christine Fraser welcomed everyone and explained why the question session was starting early.
"We have to start early if we want to get out of the intersection," shouted one man, drawing a large round of applause and laughter.
The man was referring to the reason why the town hall meeting was called. Access to Highway 97A coming out of McLeod subdivision.
It's an issue councils of the day in Spallumcheen have been well aware of, dating back to 2008, and one councils have tried to improve and resolve.
Historically, residents and the township have called upon the provincial ministry of transportation to make improvements at the contentious intersection by adding a traffic light and four-laning the highway from Armstrong to Enderby.
"The ministry has repeatedly told us they will not put a light there, and there are a bunch of reasons why," Fraser told the crowd. "The ministry is responsible for all roads in B.C. and they try and triage the roads. They have a set of criteria and a system they use to prioritize the roads...
"For the McLeod Road subdivision, council has been told there is not enough traffic volume there to justify putting a traffic light out there that far from the City of Armstrong."
No ministry officials were on hand for the meeting Monday.
There is presently a flashing beacon light at the intersection, installed in 2011. Council has met repeatedly with the ministry every year at the annual Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) convention since 2017 to discuss the intersection.
The ministry, said the mayor, has offered an interim solution. And that's putting in a protected intersection further north along Highway 97A at Mountain View Road, similar to the one presently in place at Eagle Rock Road, on the township's south end.
"That's where you have to cross one lane of traffic, get into a merge lane, start to merge, then flow into traffic," said Fraser, though the preferred option remains a traffic light at McLeod. "It's an interim solution until four-laning is done in the future. And there's no timeline for that."
The town hall meeting was called by council after the township continuously received concerns, emails, phone calls, and complaints about the McLeod Road intersection. Fraser said the meeting was the best way to get all of the information out to the residents at the same time.
And the mayor made it clear to those in attendance: it will be the residents who decide what option they want council to pursue. Council will advocate and support a decision that is also supported by the residents. But it's the ministry that still has the ability to manage their highways.
"It鈥檚 more important that we do this right than that we do it fast," she said. "That we get the right solution for the area."
The question-and-answer session lasted close to 90 minutes. A number of residents also asked for improved signage along the highway, including warning signs to be posted about trucks turning onto the highway.
Township staff will ask residents to check out the township (www.spallumcheentwp.bc.ca) for details on how to submit written stories to show the impact the intersection is having on their lives.
Council will meet again with transportation ministry staff at the UBCM convention Sept. 22-25 in Victoria. A requested meeting with transportation and transit minister Mike Farnworth was denied due to volume of requests to meet with the minister.
