lanners fla Bridge control “at HOV lane a daily challenge : _ BY MICHAEL BECKER News Editor JUST obey her. If Elaine Rogoza shouts “Stay there!” she means it. Cool your jets. She’s not out to torture you. Rogoza is simply a cog in the : human machine charged with the *-unenviable task of trying to keep us all moving safely and fairly in the Second Narrows Bridge area. She is a professional flagper- son with nine years of road expe- -Wience. Her workplace for the _ Summer:. the intersection at Mountain and Oxford. She helps high occupancy * vehicle. (HOV) lane traffic on Mountain Highway, including buses, tum and merge on to Oxford toward the bridge for the trip south. She is the keeper of the gap. It's rare road real estate these days: “Vm not asking for much,” she says. Tell that to the woman who takes at least three light changes “If they do slip in, the people NEWS photo Mike Waketietd AIDED by her trusty paddle, flagperson Elaine Rogoza commands the respect cf short- tempered drivers at the busy corner of Mountain Highway and Oxford Street during morning rush hours. well there’s the gas | saved.” Or there’s the woman who “tied to run her down like so :-much pesky road kill on Tuesday “‘moming. . “Thad to jump out of the way and my paddle accidentally hit the back of her vehicle. It kind of came down hard just as 1 was _ jumping out of the way into the oncoming . lane.’ She yelled obscenities at me. and told me I was assaulting her.” The driver was worried about missing a light at Main Street. It to get through that intersection under rush-hour conditions. There’s a lot of emotional heat on the street. HOV cheaters fuel the fire. “I find that people are getting very irate. They’re sitting in line- ups and then there are people in the HOY lane with just a driver in the vehicle and then they (the HOV cheaters) expect me to allow them to merge in,” Rogoza said. -behind them are really irate. When the police are there to catch the cheaters, the people in the lineup are there watching the oth- ers (HOV cheaters) slip by. They're screaming at the police officers. People have short iem- Pers. They don’t want to be held up.” The cheaters have all kinds of excuses like, “The $85 ticket I would get, if I don’t get one for a month, told Rogoza that a police officer told her the flagperson was there just to let her cut in. And if that doesn’t work there’s always the classic “I'm late for work” and “I'm just going to the other side of Main Street.” Rogoza has worked the spot from 5:30 am. to 10:30 a.m. since June 6.. She wakes up early to beat the rush. Four worse jams than being stuck in local bridge traffic: @ Its sunny. You're on the beach. You've got a pack of nasty little terriers attached to your extremities. A madman is circling you, whis- pering, “zoom, zoom!” — Qa00 M8 You and your car ure fuming on the Lions: Gate Bridge span, reading yesterday’ s head- lines about the NDP government's decision to not make a decision regarding the bridge for another six months. Squinting into the morn-: ing sun reflected off the single occupant. vehi- cle in front of you, a buzzing overhead catch-. es your attention. Looking up you see a small seaplane arching through the span. The sum- mer sun is kot, your Starbuck’s. coffee. ‘is’ strong, but you'd swear that’s a grinning Glen: Clark sitting in the plane’s passenger seat.“ 900 oa fl You've just rushed from the North Shore to the airport in a cab fighting bridge traffic anda_ wicked hangover. Your transcontinental flight is ‘just getting its. last call as you rush through check-in, silently listing the things you know you’ ve forgotten. :: Brushing past the anxicus-Jooking flight atten- dants, as the doo; seals with a whoosh, your eyes affix to the descending seat rows. : Great, you think to yourself, stuck in the mii: die between a window seat and an aisle seat on a 27-hour flight. , The true horror of the journey reveals: itself,: however, when you see Doug Collins in’ ‘the - window ‘seat- and Joan Grant- Cummings, : newly-elected leader of the National: Action’ Committee on the Status. of _Women,. in ‘th aisle seat: o90' &@ You've just had a wonderful Italian dinner’ with your guests the Three Tenors. Pavarotti lets loose with a rousing chorus of! Funiculi’ Funicula and spontaneously combust tight: there in front of all the guests. You-spend- lifetime of seff-reproach, unsure of _ whether ; you ‘served one peppercom: ico many, to. th former great one. oe an) Second Narrows co BY MICHAEL BECKER News Editor . traffic and head towards the bridge. | Narrows Bridge: heading. north: to “Of course that’s causing a good — the North Shore; will receive atten- deal of concern to local residents,” tion this weekend. Crews’ will work ble getting to. The Riverside Drive area is a popular spot to speed for example. proper manoeuvres on the part of drivers attempting to seach the bridge from the various connector YOU could hear robins twittering in the surishine on Oxford Street Wednesday morning. The relentiess rub of rubber on asphalt eased somewhat on Wednesday. The Second Narrows grind had less grit to choke on for some reason. Tempers were less toxic. The Mounties who police the traffic show were left a litle per- plexed by the unforeseen break. Said ;North Vancouver RCMP Sgt. Bob Beaudoin, “There's been no traffic jam to speak of. We're a little bit taken aback. | can only hope that it’s because the media and the | people and the police have all been working together on this project. That's my number one explanation for what did happen this morning. # Beaudoin witnessed a steady flow of traffic. polite merging and roads. Strangest of all was a dramatic reduc- tion in the volume of tatfic. Did we all just groan and roll over in our beds and give up on our commuting oblig Wednesday? “Less cars on the road, definitely. There were approximately 40% of the cars that were on the road yes- terdity,” said Beaudoin. He doesn't expect Wednesday's case of the vanishing 6 a.m.- to-10 am, to become the norm. The lull in traffic volume allowed police to pay some attention to the trouble spots they usually have trou- Beaudoia said Riverside resi- Beaudoin said. progressively ‘southward ‘on the ations: rush-hour SGT. Bob Beaudoin ... on the case of the vanishing rush hour. dents have asked North Vancouver District. council to reduce the posted speed limit from 50 knvh to 40 km/h. But he © said, “Because of the vol- ume of residents in that area it would be unrealistic to bring it down to 40. It would only encourage people to break the law.” About $5% of dri- vers on Riverside are travelling at 60 kin/h. The obvious speeders are moving ataclip o. 70 kivh plus. Over on DoHarton Highway it's another tion on Wednesday. problem. Many drivers frustrated by stalled talfic are taking the gravel shoulder to the right to circumvent The area got extra police utten- Meanwhile back at ground zerc, the two east lances of the Second lanes. A chicane will divert northbound wath ic on.to the newly paved centre lanes of the bridge. : NEWS graphic Catiteen Powell “48 Days to Go” ‘We're 23 days into the | Second Narrows bridge upgrade, scheduled to be completed by Aug. 15.