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Thursday, December 18, 2014
SEE PAGE 8 & 9
The Agassiz Y Harrison
for Holiday Greetings!
& NOTARIES PUBLIC
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Lunch With Santa
SING OUT Voices ring out at the 47th annual Carol Festival in Agassiz last week.
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HOLIDAY BILL BLUES
Lorene Keitch / OBSERVER
Clayton, 6, and Santa Claus have some one-on-one time Saturday at Memorial Hall. This Agassiz boy was one of the more than 200 people who came to eat lunch with the jolly man and lovely wife, Mrs. Claus.
How to keep a check on your Christmas
Roads study provides ammunition for district
spending.
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INSIDE opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 mailbag . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Shopping event . . . . . . 8 Poster kids . . . . . . . . 10 Bus schedule . . . . . . . 11 ClassiÄeds . . . . . . . . . 14
New transportation network plan gives the big picture on local roads By Lorene Keitch THE OBSERVER
The District of Kent will soon be able to make more informed decisions about road planning thanks to a recent investigation into all things road-related in Agassiz. Council hired Boulevard Transportation, a company that specializes in transportation planning and engineering services to undertake a detailed study of local road networks. Data collection was done using a
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variety of methods, explains Nadine King, transportation engineer with Boulevard. Automatic counters on roads collected data such as traffic volume, speed and vehicle classifications like whether bicycles, cars or big rigs were traveling the road. They also did manual counts at key intersections during peak hours, general observations and photo logging. They collected information from the Ministry of Transportation and ICBC. On top of that, they looked at other studies
that had a connection to local transportation planning, including the Official Community Plan (OCP), Active Transportation plan and other previous reports. All the data helps paint a picture of the usage, concerns and future potential for the district’s 61 kilometres of paved roads and 19 kilometres of gravel roads and Ministry highways that run through the community. Mayor John Van Laerhoven says the transporation network plan was
a logical next step following the recently-completed OCP. While he is waiting on Boulevard’s upcoming presentation to Council, Van Laerhoven says he already knows one concern he would like to see addressed: the lack of a bypass route through town for highway traffic. As for other community priorities, he says that will take time to sort out. “There are as many viewpoints on this as there are people in town,” he says. Continued on 3
Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas Season! ! u o Y Thank We would like to Thank the community of Harrison for a successful Blanket Drive. We were able to collect a tremendous amount of Blankets and Coats.
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