No time for left turns

There have been a lot of accidents caused by people trying to turn left on Hwy 97 on the yellow only to have straight-through traffic also try to burn through on the yellow.

It is quite impossible to turn left while the light is green as we are on a very busy highway and there is rarely a break in traffic.

There have been several letters to the editor calling for left turn, or advanced greens, on Hwy 97.

I once sat at the lights southbound on Spall waiting to turn left onto Hwy 97 for so long one day that I almost grew roots.  There was no break in oncoming Spall traffic to give us a chance to get onto the highway.

This wait gave me lots of time to wonder why Kelowna has so few left turn lanes on major roads, and of course on Hwy 97,  so when I returned home I started off by calling the City traffic department and was informed that it was nothing to do with them, I would have to call the Ministry of Transport.

I called the Ministry of Transport and was told, if I understood correctly,  that Kelowna already had as many left turn lanes on the Highway as it could handle as the highway traffic is brought to a standstill for 11 seconds at each one and therefore it hugely impedes the flow of highway traffic.

I am asking that someone from the Ministry of Transport, or someone else in the "know", please respond to this letter and let us know if I have this information correct and if so, explain this in more detail.

Seems people are getting injured and worse to save travellers a few "11 seconds" of time.  We don't have alternate bypass routes in Kelowna so I think some exceptions should have to be made when the highway runs through the middle of our City.
 

Deb Eden