At Tuesday night’s council meeting, Mayor Taylor Bachrach said that a senior resident expressed concerns over her ability to cross the road before the crosswalk stops.
Bachrach said because of the population of seniors around the Main Street at Highway 16 crosswalk, it’s something BC’s Ministry of Transportation needs to address.
“If you can’t get across the highway in the time and the light turns green then you are potentially dealing with a semi-truck coming at you as you’re trying to get to the other side,” said Bachrach.
Access Smithers completed an age-friendly assessment of the town in 2016 that addresses several crosswalks with this issues.
The report said that seniors in Smithers avoid crosswalks at King Street, Main Street, and Queen Street for Highway 16 because the crossing time is too short.
Councillor Gladys Atrill says the Main Street highway was not even singled out as the worse one in the report, saying one of the crosswalks only allows for 4.5 seconds to get to the other side.
Councillor Frank Wray added that this is not the first time the concern has been brought up to the ministry.
He said that council needs to make it clear that they’re “tired of being rebuffed when bringing citizens concerns to them.”
Bachrach said they will draft a letter to the Ministry of Transportation and can hopefully work together to fix the problem.