Wednesday - April 10, 2024 - Bridges, buses, and bypasses

⛅ High 13C

Good morning!

For those of you who merely skim these intros, you probably won’t notice anything different. For the rest of you, you may start to wonder why Grace traded in her broken microwave and Mini Cooper for two small children and a backyard full of moles.

That is because it is I—Old Grace, Grace Kennedy—have returned from 18 months of parental leave. With daycare spots secured and a home office organized, I am so excited to be back at the keyboard. There are so many interesting stories in the Fraser Valley, and I’ve missed being able to share them all with you.

As I get back into the swing of things, please don’t be strangers! Let me know about the exciting things going on in your small part of the valley, and maybe I’ll be able to tell all our other readers too.

– Grace K.

Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope

🚘 Driving today? Check the current traffic situation via Google, and find DriveBC’s latest updates.

🛣 Click here for links to road cameras across the Fraser Valley, including those for the Coquihalla, Highway 7, Hope-Princeton, Fraser Canyon, and Highway 1 in Langley and Abbotsford.

NEWS

Beyond the highway: the Fraser Valley’s transportation priorities

When it comes to the transportation priorities for the Fraser Valley’s local governments, there’s the highway. And then there’s everything else.

The Fraser Valley Regional District’s new regional growth strategy lays out exactly where and how its communities will change over the coming years—and it’s not a surprise to see a widened highway with HOV and transit lanes identified as “critical priorities” that take precedence ahead of the region’s “everything else.” (Those new lanes—and park-and-ride facilities and interchanges—are already in the works, even if construction itself is likely to take another decade.)

But the other priorities identified in the document also give a sense of where local politicians are plotting improvements—and where they’re focusing when they’re lobbying the province for more money.

• Today we’ll tackle eight priority projects in Abbotsford and Mission. Tomorrow, we’ll look at 16 more projects in Chilliwack, Kent, Harrison Hot Springs, and Hope.

Related

Need to Know

👑 Abbotsford’s Aman Merdha wants another shot at the Miss Canada crown; she is fundraising for accessibility in the meantime [Abbotsford News]

🚧 Lickman Road in Chilliwack will be completely closed at the railway tracks on Thursday and Friday this week [City of Chilliwack]

🚨 Abbotsford police arrested a driver who ran multiple red lights in Abbotsford and Surrey, but say they need witnesses [Fraser Valley Today]

🟠 Non-status residential school survivors will no longer be eligible for counselling services through the First Nations Health Authority [CBC]

📞 Premier David Eby talked to Mission residents about dumping, housing, and healthcare in a telephone town hall Monday [Mission City Record]

🩸 Agassiz’s Project AIM is joining a national pilot project to fight period poverty [Agassiz-Harrison Observer] / We wrote about AIM and its little menstrual barn on the prairie in 2022 [FVC]

✈ Langley’s Museum of Flight marked the 100th anniversary of the RCAF by displaying dozens of historic planes Monday [Global]

☢ Hope residents who have completed their radon testing are asked to return kits to the office this week [Hope Standard]

🌲 A semi-truck filled with live chicks took out a power line Tuesday morning; responders found the driver sitting on top of the truck [Chilliwack Progress]

🍷 A pair of Langley thieves stole a $4,800 bottle of cognac last week [Langley Advance Times]

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The Agenda

Harrison council agrees on something

Harrison Hot Springs’s council has told its staff to look into purchasing an early warning fire detection system for the densely forested East Sector Lands abutting the village. But first village staff will figure out where the money to potentially buy the $100,000 system will come from—and whether to open the project up to bidding.

Harrison Hot Springs resident Ross Buchanan had suggested the village buy 63 sensors and three cameras from Sensenet, a Vancouver company that has told the municipality it would give it a discount if it purchases the technology in the next month. The sensors would be installed in the village’s East Sector Lands, a large park area just east of Harrison’s neighbourhoods and downtown core. (We first reported on the suggestion last week.)

The village’s famously dysfunctional council actually saw eye-to-eye on the need for such a system, even if they disagreed on the steps the municipality should take to actually get it.

Coun. John Allen and Mayor Ed Wood suggested council should schedule a special meeting at which it could immediately buy the system using the village’s millions of reserve funds. But the three other councillors overruled them, voting to send the matter to the municipality’s Chief Administrative Officer so he could put together a report tabling the best method to proceed. That will include considering whether to pay for the money through tax revenue, rather than accumulated reserves. It would also include consideration of whether to seek offers beyond that of Sensenet.

Allen and Wood said they disagreed, arguing that referring the matter to staff would unnecessarily delay the purchase of the project. They were outvoted by Couns. Leo Facio, Michie Vidal and Allan Jackson. It’s unclear how long a staff report will take or if it will delay any purchase of a sensor system. Jackson, in making the motion to ask staff to address the matter, said: “The time has come to stop discussion and get on with coming back from a plan that will best suit the Village of Harrison Hot Springs.”

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🗓 Things to do

Bradner Flower Show: The Bradner Flower Show returns April 12 to 14 from 10am to 4pm. Details online. We wrote about the show and its legacy in 2022.

Moo Let the Cows Out: Creekside Cheese and Creamery is hosting its annual Moo Let the Cows Out event on April 13 in Agassiz. Registration is free, but required. Details online.

Shred-a-thon: Local non-profit Communitas is holding a shred-a-thon fundraiser with secure shredding at $10 a bankers box. Funds support Communitas' services for people of all abilities in Abbotsford. Details online.

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Catch up

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