Tween crossing guards with stop signs will soon have a flashing light to help them stop a growing number of vehicles zipping past their Burnaby elementary school every morning and afternoon.
Parents and students from Kitchener Elementary School came to a public safety committee meeting in May to raise safety concerns about speeding, close calls and vehicles not stopping for kids crossing on the crosswalk on Gilmore Avenue in front of the school.
“We’re noticing, with all the increased densification and all the condos and everything, a lot more commuter traffic going through; people are speeding through our street,” parent advisory council chair Tracey Mayede-Lok told the NOW.
The Kitchener delegation called on the city to improve the crosswalk with on-road crosswalk markings, overhead lighting and a pedestrian-controlled signal. They also suggested the city put up speed readers and sidewalks with a curb.
“The students are standing on gravel,” Mayede-Lok said.
Past reviews indicate a pedestrian signal isn’t warranted in front of the school, according to a city engineering report completed this month, but the city has decided to install rectangular rapid flashing beacons at the crosswalk in front of Kitchener by the end of the year anyway.
“These have proven to be an effective and economical upgrade to existing marked crosswalks where a pedestrian signal is not warranted,” states the report.
The city has also decided to add to the concrete barriers already in place along the street to prevent parents from stopping their cars in no-stopping zones and blocking sight lines while dropping off their kids.
Mayede-Lok is happy the flashing lights are going in but is concerned the city isn’t planning to install sidewalks or lights at another crosswalk leading to the school at Gilmore and William Street.
“They just kind of ignored that one,” she said. “That is where we’ve almost seen accidents, with cars coming close to hitting people.”
The city, however, said Gilmore by the school has been reviewed “on several occasions” in the past and a number of traffic safety measures have already been put in place, including curb bulges at Gilmore and William, adjustments to school zone signs, an oversized school zone information board, concrete barriers, pedestrian curb ramps at Gilmore and Kitchener and reflective markers.
“We’ve probably thrown everything we have, short of a signal, at it,” said director of engineering Doug Louie. “I’m sure we’re going to get a complaint next year too, though, but that’s OK. We can review it again.”
Louie said the city would be able to do a lot more for the street when plans to redevelop nearby Willingdon Heights Park come to fruition.
Since 1998, the city has been buying up the properties on the west side of the park in a long-term plan to expand and redevelop it, but the city couldn’t say when that acquisition project would be complete.
“That is a huge opportunity, and when that opportunity approaches, I would recommend that the city look at rebuilding (Gilmore),” Louie said.
But that’s not soon enough for Mayede-Lok.
“We’ve lived in the neighbourhood for 10 years, and nothing has changed, and now there’s all these condos going up on Gilmore and Douglas,” she said, “and now we have to wait, what? Five more years before everything’s finished?”
Kitchener also put in a request to the school district in the spring for a paid, adult crossing guard but was turned down.
Secretary-treasurer Russell Horswill told the NOW the district assesses risks at important district crosswalks every two years, and Kitchener is “quite low” on the list.
“We have other higher-priority, higher-risk schools for crossing guards that we haven’t been able to meet their needs yet,” he said.
