To the Editor,
I have been driving in and out of Port Alberni since I acquired my driving licence. I have experienced every kind of driving condition possible on Highway 4. When the Ministry of Highways says that it is as safe as ever driving around Angel Rock, I beg to differ.
Maybe from the danger of falling debris their engineers have accomplished their mandate, not from a driver’s point of view.
There used to be orange speed caution signs of 50 kmh at Angel Rock, with the maximum speed limit of 80 kmh on Highway 4. Now the maximum speed limit is 30 kmh around Angel Rock. At one point the eastbound lane narrows to the width of a single lane without the shoulder area from the white painted line to the right, and I question the way they have laid out the geometry for the corners around Angel Rock. It is nowhere close to being as safe as it was before.
I wrote a letter to the Ministry of Transportation a few years ago when they were asking for public input for proposed changes to Cathedral Grove. I am a tradesman with some engineering knowledge and I suggested something completely different.
This is what I had come up with: starting from Highway 4 heading west before Cameron Lake, just where the highway comes beside the railway, take the westbound lane one way west on what was the railway grade around the lake on the north side, to where the railway gets close to Highway 4 again at the top of the Hump.
Now with two lanes going east around Cameron Lake, with one-way traffic, it would be safer than ever: two lanes of one-way traffic east around Cameron Lake with a U-turn connector at the location where the east bound traffic splits off at the railway trestles beside Highway 4 so traffic can do circles around Cameron lake if they want.
These changes I am sure would make it way safer as well as provide two roads around Cameron Lake.
Nathen Greene,
Port Alberni
