Editor:
I am responding to a letter in the Jan. 18 Outlook by Banff’s former fire chief Silvio Adamo. In my opinion, public safety is a major concern in the pedestrian zone debate and should not be left out of the discussion, debate or equation.
He stated the Town, along with Parks Canada and others, conducted a scenario about a wildfire coming towards Banff from the west. Their data from this scenario provided some interesting conclusions, many of which I question. We saw from last summer how our so-called fire experts from Parks Canada can be wrong and almost blew it when it came to a prescribed burn.
Fires don’t follow plans very well, sometimes they have a mind of their own. Are we to put our faith in these experts? This fire blocked off an exit, which could very well happen again. What about other scenarios?
Traffic movement calculations were conducted using one vehicle per dwelling unit. That’s fine and dandy, but most of the people who live in and around my area in Middle Springs have more than one vehicle. Some have three or four vehicles because of renters, which is supposed to help address the housing shortage. I guess in a fire panic situation or other emergency, someone is going to go around and tell people to make sure you are only driving one vehicle, when multiple households are involved.
The data suggests they could move all vehicles over the bridge with one lane northbound in approximately five hours. Again, fires are unpredictable. Have we been watching the news the past few summers in Kelowna, B.C.; Hawaii; Yellowknife, Northwest Territories; Fort McMurray, and Lytton, B.C.? You don’t always have hours to evacuate. Sometimes you only have minutes to get out. So that timeline scenario is not that comforting. Also, one lane northbound would be reduced to zero lanes northbound on Banff Ave when the pedestrian zone is in effect.
He states, “Prudent evacuation strategies would include multiple exit tactics, including using all exits out of town. Sending more than one lane down Banff Ave. would create a bottle neck at the north end where it reduces to one lane and create a backup far worse than anything we have ever seen in Banff.”
The choke points at Spray and Mountain avenues intersections and the bridge are going to clog up and bottle neck the traffic, not to mention that reduced lane size by the A&W on Banff Avenue. Our exit routes are in trouble all over town. Hopefully, no accidents or incidents happen on the main bridge like the water break.
Through the years, we have been told that the pedestrian bridges would provide evacuation routes, only to find out that they cannot.
We hope and pray an emergency evacuation scenario does not ever play out, but sorry, when my family's and others' public safety is possibly affected by the pedestrian zone, it should very much be in the conversation and debate.
Irving Semenok,
Banff
