Summerside looking at all angles for crosswalk safety

The city of Summerside, P.E.I., is looking atsome out-of-the-box ideas when it comes to raising visibility for pedestrians crossing city streets.

Council is planning a committee of municipal services, police and technical services to come up with different ways to help make the city's approximately 208 crosswalks safer.

"We are getting a lot of calls," said Coun. Justin Doiron. "It was a pretty hot topic last summer during our campaigns traffic-related things, pedestrian-related things and all the safety things that go along with those."

The city already has some ideas on what it will do to increase visibility at city crosswalks.

Officials said they plan to put more flags at the sides of the road for people to hold when they are ready to cross, andhope to roll that out in the fall.

Other ideas are more long term and will be part of the city's 2020 budget season, like putting a sign in the middle of the street to indicate a crosswalk at that location.

The city is also looking into crosswalks painted with a design that makes them appear 3D, which create the illusion of the crosswalk popping out of the road to cause motorists to slow down when approaching.

He said there are also designs that are painted to make it appear children are crossing.

"So things like that just to create a buzz around the city," said Doiron.

The city also is looking at other ways to slow traffic along some streets.

"Concentrating a lot on school zones and other areas for speeding," said Greg Gaudet, Summerside's municipal services director.

"Some of the ideas have been speed humps and also a possibility of narrowing of the roadway in certain locations to slow down traffic a bit."

Gaudet said they will most likely try the 3D crosswalks as well to see how they work in Summerside.

"I'm not sure how effective they are yet however if you never try, you'll never know," he said. "You have to realize that they are new so there will be some learning curves for everyone involved."

The city plans to study all options and put forward a plan in the 2020 budget season.

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