The B.C. government and City of Langford have announced $5 million in funding to build a Leigh Road ramp off the Trans-Canada Highway and close access from the highway onto Goldstream Avenue, a stretch that area residents say is increasingly dangerous because of speeding.

Neighbours in the 1200-block of Goldstream Avenue raised concerns about the high volume of traffic travelling through the area from the highway after 47-year-old Meesha-chan Grubisic died when she was hit by a car on Feb. 13, 2014. It was believed she was running across the road after her dog.

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Transportation Minister Todd Stone and Langford Mayor Stew Young said while the transportation plan isn’t a direct result of the fatality, thousands of cars a day connect onto the winding residential street from the highway, raising safety concerns.

“Our understanding is there can be at certain times of the day a tremendous amount of traffic, almost a surge of traffic, that goes down Goldstream Avenue and can cause all kinds of issues for residents along Goldstream Avenue,” Stone said. “It’s going to divert a whole bunch of the traffic that presently is clogging up Goldstream. It’s going to get that off those residential streets and back onto the highway.”

Stone and Young made the funding announcement Monday, standing on a blocked-off portion of Goldstream Avenue as cars whizzed by on the highway.

The province and municipality will each chip in $2.5 million for the project, which includes a new acceleration lane from Westshore Parkway onto the Trans-Canada Highway toward Victoria.

In addition to the closing of the Goldstream access, access from Spencer Road to the highway will be cut off.

Construction is slated to start this summer and be finished by the fall.

“[Langford residents] are going to see some improvements to make this road safer,” Young said. “There will be less traffic — well, no traffic, eventually, once we get the off-ramp.”

Terry Power, who lives in the 1200-block of Goldstream and was Grubisic’s neighbour, welcomed the changes.

“We’re absolutely delighted that council has been responsive to closing the highway access,” Power said. “It’s going to make a big difference for us.”

There are no sidewalks on the road and many people walking their dogs have to step onto the roadway to get around cars parked on the shoulder, he said.

His wife, Pauline Power, placed fresh flowers at the roadside memorial this past Feb. 13, in memory of Grubisic, an entrepreneur and mother to a 13-year-old daughter named Ruby.

Grubisic’s brother, Brett Grubisic, said the new off-ramp will be a “godsend” to Goldstream Avenue residents.

“Whenever I visited Meesha at the house on Goldstream, she remarked on the road and both the speed and volume of the traffic in her neighbourhood,” he said.

“If Goldstream had been a quiet residential street while my sister lived there, we would most likely not be needing to have a conversation now and my family and her friends wouldn’t be mourning her absence.”

Langford Fire Chief Bob Beckett said the safety upgrades “make a considerable difference to our communities and to the responders who have to deal with these tragic incidents.”

The new interchange in Langford is part of a three-year, $1-billion transportation plan to improve B.C. highways

Stone said the highest-priority project for the Island is an overpass at McKenzie Avenue and the Trans-Canada Highway, an intersection he called the biggest bottleneck outside the Lower Mainland. He said the interchange could cost between $80 million and $100 million and the province will need financial support from the federal government to build it.

kderosa@timescolonist.com