Steep, slippery path along Charlottetown street slammed as hazard to pedestrians

A newcomer to Charlottetown who injured her ankle while walking to Walmart to drop off a job application is the latest person to call for safety improvements on the very slippery slope next to Buchanan Drive.

Yasmin Morgan-Johnson is now laid up in her third-floor apartment for six to eight weeks, with her damaged ankle in a cast, after the incident on a private road on Nov. 21.

"Not everybody can drive, and not everybody owns a vehicle," she said in an interview with CBCNews.

"I think the persons who are responsible for that area should really put in some safety measures there."

Morgan-Johnson was initially walking on Buchanan Drive itself until a passing driver rolled down the window and told her she wasn't allowed to be in the way of cars.

She stepped off the pavement onto the grassy, muddy path between Sleep Country and Walmart, and continued on her way.

Near the bottom of the hill, she tripped on some loose rocks and fell forward, got up, and then slipped, falling hard on her ankle.

Three people stopped to help her and someone called an ambulance.

"While I was on the ground, someone else ... fell on the same hill," she said.

Morgan-Johnson's husband is a long distance truck driver who came to Canada three years ago. She joined him in October from Jamaica, where she had been employed as a residential care worker.

Now she is confined to her apartment, with crutches to help her get around, while her husband is away on a trucking job.

Morgan-Johnson's landlord Jon Zuccolo has been helping her as much as he can, picking her up from the hospital when she called him about herankle, getting her some crutches and continuing to touchbase with her.

"My husband had given me the landlord's number in case of emergency, so he came for me," Morgan-Johnson said.

Zuccolo was the person who reached out to CBCNews after his tenant's injury. Before that, he contacted the City of Charlottetown and was told it was "private property, nothing to do with the city."

The property is owned bySmartCentres, and Zuccolosaid he reached out to the company'sproperty manager.

Zuccolo said SmartCentres told him they are aware that there's a path alongside the road, that it's not an official path and that it's essentially too expensive to build an official pathway there.

It's pretty unreasonable to think that perhaps the taxpayers should be responsible for mending broken bones instead of having the corporation just put in a proper pathway.- Jon Zuccolo

He said the representative told him the company might put up signs saying people shouldn't use the path.

"I suppose the alternative is to walk on the road, [or] buy a car and drive everywhere?"

He noted that there are a lot of apartment buildings in the area and many people have no option but to walk to the very busy retail zone that includes Walmart.

"I think it's pretty unreasonable to think that perhaps the taxpayers should be responsible for mending broken bones instead of having the corporation just put in a proper pathway."

The owner of the property, SmartCentres Real Estate, did not respond to a request for comment from CBC News.

Since Buchanan Drive is a private road, the corporation that owns it has a legal responsibility to make sure it's safe, said Filip Hrga, a lawyer Morgan-Johnson has consulted.

"I suspect that this is a frequent occurrence, and so for me, it's a bit mind-boggling actually, that nothing's been done, that there's no proper walkway in place, that there's no steps or path or railing or anything like that," saidHrga.

"I think there needs to be something better than just, you know, mud and a Hail Mary hope that you make it down the hill okay."