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It didn't take a crystal ball to envision the regular tie-ups in and around Ironwood Plaza and Riverport Business Park (that's the area that contains SilverCity, the Richmond Ice Centre, and the Zone Bowling area).
It was pretty obvious the two commercial nodes would become popular with residents, most of whom arrive by car. Naturally, one would have expected the city to have sought out a traffic study of Riverport. Prior to being built up, Riverport was just a lonely mucky strip accessible only by narrow, ditch-lined No. 6 Road and always busy Steveston Highway, unused to large volumes of traffic.
Yet the city didn't seek out a traffic study before it rezoned the Riverport lands as its own applicant, even though it knew developer Brent Kerr had other big plans for the area, including building a hotel and marina. Combined with those popular new facilities is the always-bottlenecked George Massey Tunnel, which has made traffic jams in the area a daily occurrence for decades.
Council and city staff did deem Ironwood Plaza significant enough to demand a comprehensive traffic study, as is normally the case. But it's become clear that study was too limited in scope.
Now after both Riverport and Ironwood have been built up, locals are experiencing the nightmarish results of that fast-tracked decision. Maybe this will serve as a reminder that before being seduced by big-time projects, parking and traffic problems must be considered. A little patience goes a long way.
