Crosswalk call misses the button, says Carew

By Mark Squibb
October 27, 2023 Edition

Councillor Glen Carew believes the Town of Paradise should consider making some changes to a new crosswalk recently installed on Karwood Drive, but the infrastructure committee isn’t interested in bringing the matter to council.

Councillor Deborah Quilty presented a brief infrastructure committee update during this week’s public meeting and noted the estimated cost of installing a remote crosswalk light activation button was discussed during the committee meeting.

The crosswalk is located where the T’railway intersects with Karwood Drive.

“I’m disappointed to see the committee has not decided to bring this forward at this point in time,” said Carew. “I spend a lot of time on that T’railway and that crosswalk, and I know this isn’t scientific evidence, it’s more anecdotal than anything else, but the majority of people, including three people I saw on the way to the council meeting tonight, didn’t use the buttons on the light post in order to cross. So, if you’re not familiar with the area, you essentially have to walk up the sidewalk to the pole to hit the button to activate the lights, and then walk back and cross the crosswalk. So, I would consider this somewhat of a safety issue.”

Carew wanted more details about the committee’s discussion and the cost of relocating the button or installing a new one.

Quilty referred the questions to councillor Larry Vaters explaining she hadn’t actually attended that particular committee meeting when those details were discussed.

Vaters said the work was estimated to cost around $5,500, plus HST.

“The consensus of committee was not to pursue it at this time,” said Vaters.

In 2022, council spent just over $90,000 to improve the Karwood Drive T’railway crosswalk by adding a pedestrian island, signage, and pedestrian activated lights, and just last month council contracted Farrell’s Excavating Limited to the tune of $150,362, HST included, to reconstruct another Karwood Drive crosswalk, this one near Paradise Elementary.

Initially, council had hoped to reconstruct both the Paradise Elementary crosswalk and a crosswalk on Topsail Road near Marie’s Mini Mart at the same time, but as the tender results came in at double the project budget, council decided to split the project into two separate contracts. The Paradise Elementary contract has already been inked, and the Town hopes to tender the Topsail crosswalk reconstruction next year.