Street Narrowing in Coquitlam: What the...?

[RichardM2010]

I can't help it; I have to rant about the street narrowing going on around Coquitlam.

What is the point of that policy? It was bad enough when they did it along Poirier (north of Foster) and some other streets. Now they are doing it along King Albert Avenue around Blue Mountain Park.

They are pulling the sidewalk into the street--basically taking away one lane each way. And at the cross-walk the sidewalk is being pulled right into the right lane to completely block another lane.

Do the policy-makers in Coquitlam not realize it is getting busier around here? There are high-rises going up around the neighborhood, and the population is going up. They should be designing streets to let more traffic through, not less.

If they want to turn every corner of this city into a "calmed" area, where every little group gets to stake a claim to a particular part of the city, why even bother allowing high-rises and other development into the city?

Why not just turn all streets into pedestrian malls? Then, in a couple years when people's patience with all the gridlock reaches its breaking point, the politicians of the time can scratch their heads and whine about how infrastructure is insufficient.