After receiving a litany of complaints, the City of North Vancouver has asked the RCMP to stop ticketing drivers for dropping off passengers on the Chadwick Court roundabout next to the SeaBus terminal.
“The first I learned of it was reading it in the North Shore News, and I wasn’t happy. I brought the staff in and asked what was going on, and I directed them to stop what they were doing,” said Mayor Darrell Mussatto.
“I said to them: ‘Back to normal, drop off, kiss-and-ride, buh-bye. Make that work.’ . . . This should not have happened.”
The city initially asked RCMP officers to help deal with the line-up of taxis clogging the area during the evenings after bylaw officers were off duty. But, according to staff, RCMP officers misinterpreted the problem and began ticketing anyone who violated the posted “no stopping” signs posted at the roundabout.
Since then, Mussatto has asked staff to replace the signs with pick-up and drop-off signs and refund the fines paid to the city.
“The drop-off and pick-up has worked very well for 33 years, for the most part. There’s been some complaints from Chadwick Court residents, and we can work with that,” he said. “If there’s a problem with people parking in front of Chadwick Court or taxis, we’ll deal with that in a more appropriate way.”
Going one further, Mussatto made a notice of motion at Monday’s council meeting asking staff to work with TransLink and Coast Mountain Bus company to include a covered area to offer some protection from the elements for people waiting at the roundabout for a lawful pickup. That motion and whether it should be included in council’s capital budget plan will be up for debate at the Dec. 9 meeting.
