A Port Blandford tourism operator is throwing his support behind the efforts of a Thorburn Lake business owner who is trying to get the provincial government to install a left-turning lane off the Trans-Canada onto his property.
Jim Lewis, who owns Terra Nova Cottages, says while they have four lanes of highway in front of his business, he dreads the day when traffic stopping to turn left into his property causes a major accident.
He says when the highway was upgraded, they did not put the paint down for a left-turning lane. Lewis, who has been raising the issue for the last six years, doesn’t want to get arrested but says “the day someone dies in front of my property, I will probably get arrested.”
Lewis says the Town of Port Blandford has—for a number of years—been calling for speed reductions on the Trans-Canada similar to those in other communities like Clarenville and Gander.
As for the provincial government’s assertion that a business must be responsible for the cost of left-turning lanes onto private property, he argues that his business is already there, and the lane could easily have been put in during ongoing roadwork.