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Crosswalk approval cheers Campbell River neighbourhood

Right after the vote, an audible ‘yay!’ came from the public gallery

A group of Barlow Road neighbours will get its crosswalk.

Council, at its July 23 meeting, gave the green light to a crossing along Highway 19A at the corner of Barlow, near Rona.

The crosswalk is expected to be painted on the south side of the intersection.

Council’s decision pleased at least one resident sitting in on last week’s council meeting. Right after the vote, an audible ‘yay!’ came from the public gallery.

The crosswalk was prompted by area residents concerned for the safety of pedestrians trying to cross the highway to access the Sea Walk.

Eleven people signed their names to a letter, which was presented to council June 25, requesting a crosswalk and a flashing light.

“The traffic seldom slows down or stops for families with children or people wanting to walk their dogs, crossing to reach the Sea Walk or the beach, mostly because there is no crosswalk,” wrote the group. “We are requesting a crosswalk, preferably with a flashing light, as soon as possible, before we end up with a fatality on our hands.”

On the request of council, city staff came back with data from a recently conducted traffic count, which determined there was enough foot traffic to warrant a crosswalk.

“The counts were used to evaluate the warrant for a pedestrian crossing,” said Drew Hadfield, the city’s transportation manager, in the report. “The warrant supports the installation of a painted crossing and the associated pedestrian crossing signage.”

However, traffic counts were not high enough to make a case for a flashing light or a pedestrian-activated signal.

The crosswalk is expected to cost the city between $750 and $1,000, which will come from the roads department’s operational budget for 2013.

Barlow is one of the few cross streets in the area along Highway 19A that does not have some form of an assisted pedestrian crossing.

Most of the intersections north of Erickson Road have either a crosswalk, pedestrian assisted flashing lights or a traffic light. The intersections south of Erickson Road – Dahl, Maryland, and Colorado – have a crosswalk and flashing pedestrian lights.