Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 22/99) - City hall was urged Tuesday night to make changes to traffic flows on Latham Island before somebody gets killed.

Twenty Morrison Drive residents attended a public meeting Tuesday night to voice their concerns about the dangers traffic poses on their street.

"The spur for this meeting was that myself and a couple of neighbours found ourselves a few times gathered around vehicles in serious accidents at the corner of Otto Drive and Morrison," said 11-year Morrison Drive resident Larry Pontus.

He said one of those accidents involved a truck that had flipped over near some mailboxes and a school bus stop.

"If that had been a Monday morning instead of a Sunday morning, he could have wiped out a few kids waiting for the bus," said Pontus.

"They're right," said Coun. Dave Ramsay. "It's a concern that has to be addressed right away."

Representing the city at the meeting were Ramsay, Mayor Dave Lovell, the director and the manager of the public works department as well as two engineers.

The residents at the meeting were all behind one solution to the problem -- making all traffic on Latham Island one-way.

The plan they proposed would have vehicles travelling one-way along Morrison to town, and one-way to Ndilo along Hearne Hill Road and Otto Drive. The three streets that run between the one-way routes would also be one-way to Morrison.

The route would require that a road now serving as an emergency access route to Ndilo be opened for general use.

"I think that's just about got to be the way it happens," said Lovell. "It's just so common sense."

At the meeting works department staff presented a more complex proposal for improving road safety on the island. The plan was panned by residents.

"It would solve nothing for Morrison Drive," said Pontus, noting the plan would leave traffic on the street running both ways.

Pontus reminded city staff neither the problem nor the solution are new. He proposed the same solution in a 1989 letter to the city. A 1993 study commissioned by the city recommended the same solution.

In spite of the evidence, the city has made no commitment to implement the recommendations. City staff will likely, however, recommend a stop sign be installed on the Back Bay side of Morrison at its intersection with Otto Drive.