Jill Robillard was aghast as she saw a driver of a high-end vehicle cruise through a crosswalk next to Rochester elementary in Coquitlam holding a burger in one hand and a smartphone in the other.
Then when she heard earlier this month a boy had almost been hit in the crosswalk on Decaire Street at Madore Avenue in addition to a similar close call for another young student in December, Robillard started to call the school, the city and the police in the hope of getting some action to make the crossing safer.
She said drivers go exceedingly fast as they approach the crosswalk, especially those coming downhill on Decaire.
“Cars are just speeding down the hill. It’s just getting out of control,” said Robillard.
Even drivers going the other direction speed through the school zone, said Robillard. “They will gun it going up the hill. I don’t know why.”
Robillard’s five-year-old son is in kindergarten and she doesn’t want to see the danger continue through his entire time at Rochester.
“I’m pretty worried. A few parents stand here every morning and every afternoon to make sure drivers stop at the crosswalk and slow down,” said Robillard. “We’re not allowed to be crossing guards, but we’re acting as eyes to make sure cars are slowing down and [drivers] see this is a school zone.”
Robillard’s complaints come on the heels of School District 43 launching a public awareness campaign in December to remind drivers to “slow down and look around” in school zones after a substitute teacher was struck in a Port Coquitlam school crossing. A near miss in a crosswalk at Coquitlam River elementary also had parent Brian Holford upset, which was reported in The Tri-City News.
When Robillard contacted Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart about the dangerous traffic he showed up the next morning. But he didn’t see anything he hasn’t witnessed at other schools, especially those on collector routes such as Mundy, Ranch Park, Eagle Ridge and Porter elementary schools.
“I can see that in some ways that it’s people that are always in a rush that might not give a thought to a school zone,” said Stewart. “You end up with people who don’t realize what they’re doing and certainly put behaviours at risk.”
Her lobbying efforts, though, just may have paid off. Coquitlam transportation manager Dan Mooney had invited her to meet with the city and an ICBC representative on Friday (Feb. 1) but it was postponed to Wednesday (Feb. 6).
“It’s great. I can’t wait for Friday to see what comes of this. I want to get them to look at it.”
In an interview with The Tri-City News, Mooney said the crosswalk on the west side of Rochester elementary, at Schoolhouse Street and Madore, has had similar complaints.
“The reports we’re hearing are concerning,” said Mooney. “School safety is a real concern for all of us. Always has, always will be.”
But the Rochester crosswalks aren’t unusual, said Mooney, pointing out almost all 23 schools in the city have a traffic issue. “This is not the exception, it is the norm.”
Mooney said the city has done a number of upgrades at crosswalks throughout Coquitlam. In the case of Decaire, said Mooney, the city has also changed the centre-line markings to double solid yellow on both sides of the crosswalk as well as additional signage to let drivers know to yield to pedestrians.
The city asked Coquitlam RCMP to monitor the intersection, said Mooney, who added there is no need for vehicles to speed in either direction since it is a marked school zone limiting speed to 30 km/h.
Mooney said the city uses guidelines on pedestrian and traffic volume, speed and the crossing width to determine what type of markings or installations an intersection should have and will be doing so at both of the Rochester elementary crosswalks before deciding what action, if any, to take.
“We don’t just throw in a higher level device if it doesn’t meet those tests,” said Mooney.
The next level from the current situation on Decaire would be a special crosswalk, he said, with overhead flashing lights to stop the driver and a flashing light at eye level to let pedestrians know drivers are being told to stop. But even those intersections cause concern because drivers aren’t always stopping.
Mooney has high hopes for a new technology — rectangular rapid flashing beacons — that flash in a strobe pattern at eye level for the driver. Although they’ve been around for a few years some propriety issues have kept cities from installing them, but those have been recently resolved.
“Really eye-catching. Very effective. A lot less cost because it doesn’t have to be mounted above the traffic,” said Mooney.
Stewart first tackled the issue of traffic safety around schools when he was chair of the SD43 parent advisory council. He said parents dropping off their children create safety issues as does parking too close to the crosswalk which can obstruct drivers from seeing pedestrians in the crosswalk.
“People shouldn’t be U-turning over an intersection in front of a school. Yet we saw it three or four times that morning [at Rochester],” said Stewart. “A taxi stopped right in the middle of the crosswalk to let a passenger out of the taxi. I spoke to the driver of the taxi and he just rolled up his window and drive off.”
Some parents, said Stewart, park their vehicles and then jaywalk their child across the street to the school just 10 metres from a crosswalk. “You’re teaching the child an important message, just not the right message.”
Tuesday morning Stewart went to Riverview Park elementary, which is also on a collector route.
“It’s got some crosswalk issues. I would want to see a curb bulge installed there. Part of their issue is so many parents want to drop their kids off in the morning, We’re having to design for bigger and bigger dropoff zones,” said Stewart.
Putting in crosswalks mid-block aren’t the answer either, said Stewart, because the pedestrians get a false sense of security when they’re in the crosswalk. “Sometimes the mid-block crosswalk becomes more of a risk.”
At Panorama elementary, he said, parents line up to pick up their kids from school at 2 p.m. with the line extending for a block and a half blocking one of the two uphill lanes on Johnson Street.
A few years ago, said Stewart, the city has a six-figure budget for traffic safety around schools. It started with the elementaries before moving on to the middle and high schools. Stewart said it may be time to go back and see if further work needs to be done.
