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Sidney group pushes for Beacon Avenue to be full two-way street

A group of Sidney business people hopes to turn the town’s main drag back into a two-way street.
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Steve Duck is a proponent of making Beacon Avenue in Sidney a full two-way artery again. He says that would improve access to the business district and simplify things for drivers. Council is considering the proposal.

A group of Sidney business people hopes to turn the town’s main drag back into a two-way street.

Making Beacon Avenue a two-way artery would improve access and make things simpler for drivers, said Steve Duck, who runs a company called TIDES, The Island’s Destination and Event Service.

“The challenge there is that you have a street that runs from the highway to the water, Eighth Avenue to First Avenue,” Duck said. “Three blocks of that expanse is one-way and the others are two-way.”

Drivers can find that challenging, he said, and vehicles sometimes wind up heading in the wrong direction.

“One-way streets are meant to move traffic, and get traffic from Point A to Point B and out of the way. In your small town, this is your business district and you’re looking to interest people in stopping and browsing and poking around and having a meal,” he said. “To rush them through town is not what you want to do.”

Civic engineers estimate the cost of converting Beacon Avenue at $50,000 to $70,000 — an amount Duck called relatively low.

Basic tasks — repainting lines and removing signs — could be completed quickly, he said. “The one construction piece that has to be done is at Second and Beacon, there’s a bump out there that prohibits two-way traffic from falling back into the current one-way system.”

The change would not lead to narrower sidewalks or less parking, said Duck, who is helping to distribute petitions on the issue.

Council has sent the proposal to municipal staff for analysis, and will consider it on Oct. 24.

The decision to make part of Beacon Avenue one-way drew criticism when it was made in 1997, but supporters saw it as a means of increasing pedestrian traffic and revitalizing the area.

Sidney Mayor Larry Cross said council is listening to what supporters of the change are saying. “We understand this group really feels strongly that business opportunities will improve in the town with two-way directional traffic on Beacon Avenue.”

Changing Beacon Avenue requires reaching out to the entire community for input, Cross said. Not only does council want the best for local business, it wants Beacon to be as safe as possible.

A traffic study completed this year looked at a number of options, including keeping the current set-up while improving cycling opportunities and converting some angle parking to parallel parking. Another option was a two-way street giving priority to pedestrians, similar to what is seen on Government Street in Victoria.

jwbell@timescolonist.com