Saanich residents calling for rapid road-safety improvements for pedestrians rallied at a Shelbourne Street crosswalk at 7:20 a.m. Wednesday, the same place and time that a child crossing at the four-way intersection was hit by a vehicle a day earlier.
The child, who Saanich police said was under 12, was heading to school when hit by the southbound vehicle at San Juan Avenue and was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Calling for “no more child deaths,” neighbours and road-safety advocates, supported by incoming and outgoing Saanich councillors, demonstrated at the heavily treed intersection of Shelbourne Street and San Juan Avenue for almost an hour. The intersection has a marked crosswalk with pedestrian-controlled flashing beacons.
Joanne Gordon was there with toddler son Delaney Arthur Black and husband Kelly Black. She said she lives at the Saanich intersection of Cedar Hill Cross Road and Richmond Road and finds vehicle speeding, rolling stops and distracted driving “terrifying.”
“It’s really hard not to put yourself exactly in that parent’s shoes,” Gordon said, referring to the girl who was injured. In her experience in Saanich, drivers think “pedestrians are exclusively responsible for watching cars, versus the other way around.”
Elise Cote, a road-safety advocate who was at the rally, said a stretch of Tillicum Road where her son was almost hit by a SUV was recently improved.
Many of the councillors at the rally campaigned on road safety, she said, “and we’re here because we’re ready and we want them to move quickly.”
Saanich mayor-elect Dean Murdock attended the rally, saying he lives just blocks from the intersection and uses it with his two children. “This easily could have been my child using this crosswalk yesterday and so I’m here to show my support for the family,” said Murdock. He said he expects to move forward quickly on road-safety improvements with the new Saanich council.
“These unfortunate incidents are a reminder that the roads are not always safe for people walking and biking.”
Murdock said there are areas where obvious low-cost improvements can be made, including overhead lighting and bollards.
Of ICBC’s top 10 intersections on Vancouver Island for crashes, three are in Saanich: Blanshard Street and Saanich Road; Boleskine Road, Douglas Street and Saanich Road; and McKenzie Avenue and Quadra Street.
“We need to look at the different crossings and corridors where we know that they’re risky and look at what are some of the things that we can do to be improving those,” Murdock said. “They don’t have to be costly. I think they need to be practical improvements that are going to reduce the potential for another incident like this.”
Saanich councillors Ned Taylor and Rebecca Mersereau, who did not run in the Oct. 15 municipal election and will officially lose their posts when the new council is sworn in Nov. 7, were at the event, as was re-elected Coun. Zac de Vries. The three recently voted against pausing some “quick-build” road safety improvements but were outvoted.
“We can’t have any delay and inaction on this — it’s too serious of an issue and yesterday is another reminder of how urgent an issue it is,” Taylor said.
De Vries called Tuesday’s collision “heartbreaking” and a “glaring example” of why investments need to be made in road safety. “One of the first things we need to do is ‘unpause’ the quick-builds that were paused by the last council,” de Vries said.
And while the last council made headway on pedestrian and cyclist improvements, he hopes the new council goes even further.
“A lot of our roads are designed for the convenience of the through traffic rather than safety and there’s ways where we can keep people moving, but also keep vulnerable road users safe, and that’s such a critical and worthy investment and one we need to deliver on.”
Rishi Sharma, whose request for a recount was turned down after he lost out on a spot on council by 11 votes, was also at the rally, and said he wants to get road improvements moving.
Saanich police said the slower speed of the vehicle that hit the child Tuesday limited the severity of the child’s injuries. Some municipalities, including Saanich, are looking into lowering speed limits on side streets, citing research showing pedestrians hit by vehicles travelling at speeds of 30 km/h and under are much more likely to survive.
ceharnett@timescolonist.com
