Crews are expected to complete safety improvements at the intersection of Highway 101 and Oceanview Drive – the scene of a fatal accident last March – in the next few weeks.
Eighty-six-year-old Janice Farrell of Gibsons was struck by a car and killed the night of March 21, 2016. She’d been trying to cross the highway after getting off a bus.
The Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) transportation committee reviewed the response from Transportation Minister Todd Stone to a letter the committee sent last June about concerns raised in the wake of the accident.
“The crash that occurred at this location was tragic,” Stone wrote. “Ministry engineers recently completed a safety review of the Highway 101 corridor near Oceanview Drive and recommended a number of improvements. We have since installed signs to highlight pedestrian activity at the Oceanview Drive intersection, as well as near the Poplars trailer park access. Delineators have also been installed at all four corners of the Oceanview Drive intersection to improve nighttime visibility. In addition, the ministry will be installing an overhead luminaire on the north side of this intersection to further improve visibility.”
Don Legault, the ministry’s operations manager for the Lower Mainland district, said BC Hydro crews will be installing the light soon.
Elphinstone director Lorne Lewis asked if the ministry was also considering a lower speed limit for that area, which is part of the same straight stretch of 101 where a 12-year-old girl was struck and killed in January 2007.
Legault said a speed limit change is not part of the ministry’s plan at this time.
