by Laura Walz editor@prpeak.com Most Atrevida Road residents north of Powell River are opposed to the location of Canada Post’s new community mailboxes.
The boxes have been moved to Gifford Road from Atrevida, where they were located at the top of the road on Highway 101. Canada Post has been installing community mailboxes throughout the rural areas in Powell River.
Rita Boehler-Wiebe, who lives on Atrevida, said she thinks it’s unfortunate that the boxes were moved because the new site on Gifford is unsafe. “It’s right off the highway,” she said. “When we’re turning off the highway, there’s no view. If you’re coming off this little road, people can’t see you because it’s right on a curve.”
There is also not enough room to turn around on Gifford, Boehler-Wiebe added. “You have to go up the road and turn around in somebody’s driveway,” she said. “Where it was, it was an extremely good location.”
The Atrevida location had a clear view of the highway, plus the boxes were a good distance away from the edge of the highway, she added. “There could be five cars piled up and it was very safe,” she said. “You could turn around off road rather than having to try to squish around.”
Patrick Brabazon, Powell River Regional District Electoral Area A director, brought the issue forward at the November 17 rural services committee meeting. He said he has been hearing from many residents on Atrevida who are upset at the relocation.
Brabazon said many residents used to walk to the old green boxes. “No one is going to walk to this set of boxes on Gifford,” he said. “If I were a woman at night, you wouldn’t get me near those boxes. It’s a terribly bad location.”
People will back out on the highway, he also said, “to get in and out of there.”
He asked committee members to pass a motion to recommend to the board that it advise Canada Post that the Gifford site is unacceptable from the point of view of safety for vehicles and pedestrians and that it move the boxes back to Atrevida. The committee passed the motion unanimously and it is expected to be on the agenda for the November 24 board meeting.
Brabazon had spoken to a Canada Post representative about the issue, but the Peak did not receive any information from that person before deadline.
Clint Monson, area manager for BC’s ministry of transportation and infrastructure, said Canada Post submitted a permit application for approximately 64 different sites throughout the area. “It’s up to them to decide where they wanted to have them located,” he said. “The idea was to get as many as they could off Highway 101 for safety reasons.”
Monson said he looked at all the proposed locations with respect to safety, site distances and that the boxes wouldn’t negatively affect drainage. “Basically, when it comes down to where they want to relocate them, that’s they’re job,” he said. “All I do is review what they submitted and I didn’t see any safety concerns.”
Anick Losier, a Canada Post spokesperson, said the new community mailboxes are more secure than the old green boxes, which were never meant to be for long-term use. “The new CMBs [community mailboxes] are just so much better, better looking and easier in terms of safety and security,” she said. “They have all kinds of new features on them and customers will have one address, instead of having to maintain two.”
The community mailboxes are set up to use the customer’s actual civic address, Losier added. “For mailing companies, billing companies, using civic addresses is much easier. Site compartment addressing is actually becoming part of the past.”
Canada Post has accommodated customers by allowing up to a year for the change of address, Losier also said. The change has affected about 2,300 customers in Powell River. “The civic address is linked to your house, so for emergency crews it’s also much easier. It makes it easier for all kinds of reasons, for the customer as much as for us.”
