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Complaints may change Highway 99 traffic count

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DELTA (NEWS1130) – Complaints from Highway 99 commuters who feel they were slowed down by traffic counters this week may prompt TransLink to revisit how they survey the area.

That’s according to Drew Snider with the transportation authority. “How do you get the best vantage point? They’ve got to be able to see the cars. If you’re on a six-lane highway and you’re counting vehicles going by pretty quickly it’s going to be a lot easier if you can stand outside and count than if you’re sitting inside the vehicle.”

Snider says complaints from commuters may have them revisiting how the area is surveyed in the future.

“It’s all part of our planning process as we make our decisions about where people are making their trips and where we need to put in more transportation services and so forth.  They’re not doing the counting the in the same place on consecutive days.  They are close, though. The idea is to do counting in the same area but not the same exact locations on back to back days.”

It was a frustrating morning commute for many people from Delta as traffic counters caught the attention of drivers again. They’re dressed in vests and on the side of Highway 99 for a second day.

“When you see a vehicle off to the side of the road, even if it is on the shoulder and you see someone outside of their vehicle… obviously you are going to think they need help,” explains Kim Seale with the News1130 Air Patrol.

She figures the problems on the 99 and 91 would have been less severe this week had these folks stayed in their cars and done the counting from there. “The vests were horrible, because I mean those are the big yellowy-orange vests… the ones that you use in the dead of night when you are trying to get around your vehicle to change a tire or something like that.”

“Those things, you could see them from the plane at 1,000 feet,” Seale tells us. “They shouldn’t be outside walking around; that’s when you have the chance of getting hit.”

This morning, northbound traffic on Highway 99 was backed into White Rock — though, there was an accident contributing to the backlog.

For up to the minute traffic updates, you can follow us on Twitter @News1130Traffic or subscribe to breaking news alerts sent directly to your inbox. You can also listen live to traffic reports every 10 minutes on the ones.

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