My wife and I often drive west on 43rd Avenue to Highway 97, turn right, then left into the Vernon Square mall, when we must, more often than not, weave our way through the jamb-up of southbound traffic.
Exiting this mall from the two accesses on to Highway 97, either northward or southward, depending upon which exit, is also often becoming almost impossible due to the pile-up of traffic, southbound in particular.
Short of a highway bypass around Vernon, the solution seems to me to be calming/slowing the traffic entering Vernon from the north.
That means, begin by appropriately lowering the speed to 70 or 80 kilometres an hour prior to the truck weigh station to make that operation safer.
Then my preference would be to install a modest, simple traffic circle at Stickle Road, with warning, white road stripes and lowered speed limit as this intersection is approached.
This is done at many such intersections in the U.K.
Then, establish a modest speed limit of about 70 kilometres per hour to the light at 48th Avenue and 50 kilometres per hour into and through the city.
For graphic examples of this roundabout tactic, check out Google Earth (GE) on the main highway north of Edinburgh, for example.
There are many, much more complicated such intersections to, and past the St. Andrew's Golf Course community, and throughout the U.K.
Looking at the Stickle Road intersection on GE leads me to believe there is ample room for a modest roundabout.
It will be much less expensive, much more convenient, effective for much longer, less environmentally intrusive and generate less traffic on local residential roads, for all concerned, than the current no left-turn and massive merge lanes proposed by the transportation department.
At one of their public meetings, I was led to believe that a light would probably have to be installed, in any case, within five years due to increased traffic flows. What a waste.
This traffic-calming strategy would also lessen the traffic pile-up at the Vernon Square mall and through the city, thus avoiding the millions of wasted taxpayers' funds and the construction inconvenience.
K. Derek