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Detour: Residents foil ratrunners Police officers posted to keep commuters out of neighbourhood
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BY CAYLEY DOBIE REPORTER cdobie@royalcityrecord.com
Fed up with traffic congestion, one New Westminster neighbourhood took its fight to city hall and won. Shortly before 5 p.m. on Monday, residents of Victoria Hill gathered near Memorial Drive and McBride Boulevard to celebrate their recent success in reducing traffic in their neighbourhood. “We’ve really all been having champagne for the past hour and a half,” laughed Paul Densky, a Victoria Hill resident. “There’s no traffic. It’s phenomenal.” Densky was among a group of residents in Victoria Hill that had been fighting to have a sign installed at Memorial Drive to restrict commuters, who use the quiet neighbourhood as a shortcut onto the Pattullo Bridge, from making left turns onto McBride Boulevard. The sign was installed over the weekend, in time for rush hour on Monday, and not only was it stopping commuters sneaking through the neighbourhood, but police officers were assigned to
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the intersection to ensure the new regulation was being followed. “This is what this neighbourhood was supposed to be, like a park,” Densky said. But Victoria Hill wasn’t always
this peaceful. When tolls were introduced on the new Port Mann Bridge, residents were dealing with an increasing number of commuters using their community as a short-
cut on to the Pattullo Bridge. According to Densky, nearly every weekday around 3 p.m. a line of cars forms from East Royal Avenue down both Ross Drive and Francis Way to Memorial
From left, Victoria Hill residents Jarin Locey, Paul Densky and Nolan Eddy were celebrating the installation of a “no-left-turn” sign, put up at Memorial Drive to stop commuters from cutting through their neighbourhood as a shortcut onto the Pattullo. Larry Wright/
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Drive, where drivers can make a left-hand turn onto McBride Boulevard. Densky moved to Victoria Hill about one year ago and was
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District considers closing Hume Park – again BY NIKI HOPE REPORTER
nhope@royalcityrecord.com
For the last five years, Hume Park Elementary has had to fight to stay open, and now parents at the school are going to have to pull out their boxing gloves one more time. The board of education voted to move forward on a 45-day public consultation process to consider closing the small school, which has just 25 students. The district is
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contemplating shutting down the kindergarten-to-Grade-5 program for both educational and financial reasons (the closure would save $73,310), superintendent John Gaiptman said. “I was charged with looking for ways to bring efficiencies educationally and financially in the district and felt that given the size of the school, it was imperative that the board look at it (closure) again,” Gaiptman told The Record. Enrolment at the school has dwindled
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dergarten to Grade 3 class and a Grade 3 to Grade 5 class. The school has two teachers. As for next year, enrolment is expected to be even lower with just 19 students slated to turn up in the fall, according to the district. “I think that anytime you have a school the size of Hume Park, it is imperative that boards look at these things and ask themselves the question whether or not it is the district’s best interest if the school remains
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significantly since the district first started considering its closure – going from about 60 students in 2009 down to about onethird of that this year. A number of parents became frustrated with the school’s uncertain future – it was on the chopping block three times over five years – and pulled their kids out of the school and moved them to other schools to ensure stability. Currently, Hume Park has two teachers and two three-grade split classes – a kin-
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