I live on McNeill Avenue and I witness vehicles go flying by my house with absolute reckless abandonment each and every day.
As a result of the combination of speed and the volume of traffic getting in or out of my driveway, walking or cycling is unnecessarily challenging. When speaking to a member of council about this issue the advice I was given was to park on the street across from your neighbour and create a ‘pinch’ in the traffic flow and slow things down.
Not really a good idea, as recently there has been two service vehicles parked in the front of my house, on two separate occasions, both of which had their driver-side mirrors broken off by passing vehicles.
People have forgotten that McNeill Avenue is first and foremost a residential street and when they speed they put pedestrians, children, family pets, and cyclists’ safety in jeopardy.
Something has to change before tragedy strikes. Protecting the public’s safety should be the most important consideration for Oak Bay council and the engineering department.
I recognize that the volume of traffic is relatively a constant, but the rate of speed is within the control of council and the engineering department – installing speed control devices and lowering the speed limit would go a long way to making McNeill Avenue a safer place.
The posted speed is 40km/h, but I can guarantee that is not the speed most people drive along this stretch of road.
There are simple solutions to this problem which have already been utilized on other streets in Oak Bay and Fairfield. You just need to walk over to Mountjoy Avenue where council has installed speed bumps and reduced the speed to 30km/h.
Or, just cross over Foul Bay Road to Quamichan Avenue or Brighton Avenue and you will see that the City of Victoria has also installed speed bumps along these two roads to protect the safety of its citizenry.
The time has come for the Oak Bay council and its agencies to put the safety of the residents of McNeill Avenue on the agenda and deal with this issue, before it is too late.
D.J. Agar
Oak Bay