Skip to content

TRUCK TALK:: The truck stops here

Neither Anderson Avenue Residents nor Third Avenue business want industrial trucks on their streets–so what's the city to do?
93686alberniAndersonTruck1-nov5_0693
An industrial truck drives down Anderson Avenue.

We can’t live without them. But there is much debate about where we want trucks to go in the Alberni Valley. Reporter Katya Slepian dissects the four options the city is pondering.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Numerous studies. A plethora of city staff reports. Decades of talk.

How many official truck routes? Zero.

A designated truck route has eluded both the city of Port Alberni and the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District, much to the frustration of residents and businesses that want industrial trucks anywhere but on the road at their doorstep.

Should they be sent down to the waterfront to compete with the tourists the city is hoping to attract?

Or maybe we should send them down Third Avenue, despite Uptown businesses’ complaints that they scare away customers, break down the roads and pose a safety hazard.

Maybe they should go up Anderson Avenue, where residents say the trucks are already so loud that they can’t sit on their patios and school children are put at risk by the lack of sidewalks.

And finally, maybe it’s time to avoid those issues—and the city—altogether and send the trucks down a $20 million ring road beyond its eastern boundary?

Yet another report will come to council in the coming weeks. There is no clear-cut best option but it is time to finally make up our minds.

And we're helping you study up. Click here for Harbour Road, here for Third Avenue, here for Anderson Avenue and here for the Ring Road.

reporter@albernivalleynews.com

twitter.com/alberni