Municipal officials last week received an earful from citizens impatient for them to take action to slow down traffic along Government Road in Brackendale.
Greig Garland, the District of Squamish's (DOS) director of capital projects, sought to reassure several people who attended an open house on Thursday (April 4) at Brackendale Elementary School that district officials haven't ruled out any options in the quest for the best solution to concerns about pedestrian and vehicular safety along a key stretch of the arterial road.
The intersection of Depot and Government was the scene of a two-vehicle crash last November that left one driver dead and another seriously injured. Results of the police investigation into the crash have not yet been released, Garland told about 30 attendees.
After that tragedy, district officials set up traffic monitoring equipment to measure the volume and speed of traffic approaching the intersection, an action they repeated last month in an effort to verify the information gathered last year.
A few attendees became impatient with Garland and Sarah Rocchi, a Vancouver-based traffic engineering consultant, after Rocchi suggested that the data shows the median speed of drivers travelling on Government Road, though between eight and 11 kilometres per hour over the posted 50 km/h limit, is within the range that traffic engineers normally find acceptable.
Citing something she referred to as the 85th Percentile Speed rule, Rocchi said, It's not uncommon to see the 85th percentile speed be around 10 km/h over the limit.
Added Garland, Public perception is not always correct in terms of the design perspective. It's [public perception] not wrong, but in terms of what the data says, speed in terms of the 85th percentile is within accepted norms.
One man responded, You can study it to death; we really don't care. Traffic is too fast and we need to just slow it down.
Another man said the time of day is often a factor. At night, the man said, he has seen drivers travelling north on Government reach the Depot intersection and just punch it to between 80 and 100 km/h.
While much of the meeting focused on the alignment and safety of that intersection, it became apparent during the meeting that people's concerns also extend northward into the school zone serving Brackendale Elementary and Don Ross Secondary School.
Robyn Ross, vice-principal of Don Ross Secondary, said traffic needs to be slowed down for the safety of the approximately 800 students who attend the two schools. Of the crash that took the life of Squamish resident Tanya Lee Boudewyn, Ross said, We all know that if that horrible crash had happened five or 10 minutes earlier, we may have lost a child as well.
Liz Scrutton, who has worked as a school crossing guard along on Government for six years, said during that time she hasn't seen a single RCMP speed trap set up along that stretch.
I'd like to see radar trucks there in the morning and afternoon. They could make a fortune, Scrutton said, adding, We're not talking 50 km/h [over the school-zone limit of 30 km/h]. We're talking 65 to 70.
After Ross said she might be inclined to ask Don Ross Grade 9 Leadership students make signs and stage a demonstration urging Government Road drivers to slow down, Garland said educating all involved drivers as well as students who walk to and from school is probably at least part of the solution.
He compared the situation to the school zone on Buckley Avenue, near Squamish Elementary and Howe Sound Secondary schools. On Buckley, The message has been ingrained so clearly there that you automatically slow down. So why hasn't the message gotten through here? Garland asked.
District officials have included the painting of school zone markers on the roadways where they're needed around town, including Brackendale, in the 2013 line-painting program, he said.
As for the Government-Depot intersection, some seemed to feel a four-way stop might be the solution. While Garland stressed that that hasn't been ruled out, he added, The research shows that [drivers] speed up in between stop signs to make up for lost time.
One attendee suggested that the district consider a light that flashes red (stop) for drivers on Depot and yellow (caution) for those on Government.
Officials offered a summary of other possible traffic calming measures, including roundabouts, traffic islands and rumble strips. Garland stressed that while there are pros and cons to each, such measures are not off the table.
He said district engineering officials have hunches about the sorts of solutions that might be proposed to council, but are still gathering information about the supposed problem, part of which is seeking public input, Garland said. They're also awaiting the results of the investigation into last November's crash, which could include recommended traffic-safety upgrades, he said.
Garland said district officials currently don't have a timeline on the next steps in the process, but that he hoped to be able to stage a second public open house within the next three months.
