People in a residential Vancouver neighbourhood say that a move to reduce congestion in another area is driving hundreds of trucks into their streets.
Bethan Stewart says more and more large container trucks have been travelling down Nanaimo Street in recent months, creating a major safety concern for the community.
"They speed down the street, they slide through the orange [traffic light], they slide through the red," she told CTV News.
"I want them off our neighbourhood streets and back on Clark."
Port Metro Vancouver closed an entry point for trucks on Clark Street last summer to address traffic congestion, but there are increasing calls to reverse the decision.
City councillor Kerry Jang says that 271 trucks were spotted on Nanaimo during a one-day count in June. That's a 900-per-cent increase over the last count.
"From the port's perspective, having trucks move in quicker and out quicker of course increases the efficiency of the port, which is the local lifeblood of our economy. However, they did so at the cost of a neighbourhood and that's just not acceptable to us," Jang said.
Nanaimo is a designated truck route, but the port's manager of logistics and operations Tony Benincasa says they didn't expect trucks to starts using the street in such big numbers.
He also says that police checked out reports of unsafe driving last week.
"Ten tickets were issued. It's interesting to note that our commercial vehicles were not part of any of those tickets," Benincasa said.
The port and the city are trying to find a long-term solution, but the port says that re-opening the Clark Street entrance is not an option.
"Closing of that particular gate access point certainly reduced and solved a problem," Benincasa said.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Maria Weisgarber
