ROTHENBURGER – The uphill battle to get rid of one-way streets downtown
(Image: Mel Rothenburger)
WHEN I ASKED Coun. Denis Walsh on last week’s segment of CFJC-TV’s Balance of Powerwhat single thing he’d fix about downtown Kamloops if he could, I was surprised at his answer.
I expected him to talk about parking, or maybe densification. But no, Walsh’s answer was (wait for it) one-way streets.
Specifically, changing Seymour Street from one-way back to two-way.
The idea has been on the books for at least 20 years and nobody at City Hall has had the will to take it on seriously. At one point, and I remember this well, blueprints were drawn up to transform Seymour into a pedestrian-friendly two-way street focused on people instead of cars.
But people come and go at City Hall, people with different priorities and politics, and it was shuffled back into the nether regions of downtown planning.
Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and newspaper editor. He publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Leave a comment