Coun. Holt pushes for Walkerville crosswalk
Ward 4 Coun. Chris Holt is taking another stab at getting a $69,000 pedestrian crosswalk installed on Wyandotte Street East at Chilver Road.
He tried but failed to convince the rest of council when he was new to the job back in 2015, and more recently asked for it to be included in the 2018 enhanced capital budget passed last month.
“Unfortunately, the funding wasn’t there, so I’m using my ward funds to move it forward,” Holt said, shortly after notifying council Monday night he’ll make a motion for the crosswalk at the Feb. 26 meeting.
Part of this year’s enhanced budget was $100,000 for each of the city’s 10 wards, to pay for projects councillors believe are high priorities for their residents. Holt hopes to pay for the crosswalk with $52,000 from his ward funds, with another $12,000 coming from Ward 8 Coun. Bill Marra’s ward funds and $5,000 from Ward 3 Coun. Rino Bortolin.
Meanwhile, the Olde Walkerville Residents Association has started a petition urging council to approve the crosswalk.
“It’s an issue a lot of people think is really important to the neighbourhood,” association member Dylan Kristy said Tuesday. “The heart of Walkerville is kind of centred around that intersection of Chilver and Wyandotte.”
He said most pedestrians won’t walk east or west to the traffic lights and instead navigate their way through the busy traffic. The crosswalk Holt is proposing would have buttons for pedestrians to push, which activate overhead flashing lights to stop traffic, similar to the crosswalk at Riverside Drive and Lincoln Road.
There has been at least one pedestrian fatality at the intersection. In 2005, an impaired driver struck Kenneth Willmott, 53, a University of Windsor law librarian and father of four, as he crossed Wyandotte. In 2015 there was a serious accident involving a car and two pedestrians. And Holt said there have been a string of close calls.
The lack of a crosswalk is also an irritant for Walkerville merchants, who want to see customers crossing back and forth to patronize their businesses. And residents want the crosswalk for walks around the neighbourhood.
“So this is a high priority to not just Ward 4 residents, but also residents all across the city who visit Walkerville,” Holt said.
Joan Charette, the co-ordinator of the Walkerville Business Improvement Association, said the crosswalk is especially necessary during festivals and events when the street’s not closed to vehicles.
“It just makes a safer environment. The more people are coming to Walkerville the more you have to put in safety measures,” she said.
“There are people crossing with bikes, there are people crossing with baby carriages. It’s not easy to just run across the street. It’s a busy road.”