Transportation Minister Claire Trevena has asked ministry staff to conduct a new speed survey along the portion of Highway 101 between the Gibsons town boundary and the Woodcreek Park neighbourhood in Elphinstone.
The promise was part of Trevena’s response to a May 31 letter from Gibsons Mayor Bill Beamish outlining safety concerns and urging the minister to consider a bypass between Langdale and Sechelt.
The last speed review on that section of highway was in 2016, the same year an 86-year-old woman died when she was hit while trying to cross the highway from a bus stop at Oceanview Road.
Beamish’s letter also asked Trevena to look at having crosswalks installed at Oceanview Road and near the Poplars mobile home park, where a young girl died in 2007 while also trying to cross the highway from a bus stop.
Trevena responded that the idea was studied in 2011 and ministry staff “have since been monitoring pedestrian safety in the area.”
“Although neither location has been a candidate for a new crosswalk based on our engineering review,” Trevena wrote, “we have completed several improvements to enhance pedestrian safety.”
Trevena closed her letter with what has now become a familiar part of her responses to the highway issue – the fact that over the past 10 years safety on Highway 101 has improved, with a 26 per cent reduction in the “severity and frequency” of collisions.
A consultant’s study on potential improvements to Highway 101 and “potential linkages between Gibsons and Sechelt” is expected later this year.
