Prince Rupert Lions Club raise road safety concerns with City Council

2nd Ave West at Third Street Two of the many crosswalks in the
downtown core where potential danger lurks for pedestrians

The rate of pedestrian/vehicle incidents in the city has resonated strongly with one of Prince Rupert's Community organizations, with the Prince Rupert Lions Club recently addressing a letter to Mayor Lee Brain and City Council to call attention to some concerns their group has with the issue.

The correspondence to Council makes note of the frequent occurrence of injuries to pedestrians and highlights the potential causes to such areas as winter darkness, driver inattention, traffic congestion and low visibility when it comes to pedestrians.

Towards the visibility concern, the Lions note for Council that their organization is investigating the cost of purchase for reflective armbands, which the Lions are considering as a project to distribute to Senior Citizens and other vulnerable pedestrians within the community.

Their correspondence to Council also puts the spotlight on an area of the city which the Lions believe requires more light, that being the heavily travelled Second Avenue Corridor, which they describe as very poorly lit.

From that they have issued a call for "the City to contact the Department of Highways and request immediate improvements to the street lighting along the busy and dangerous corridor."

The busy corridor between 1st and Five Corners brings vehicles
and pedestrians together at many crossing points through the
downtown core of the City

Of the main travel areas around the city, it is the Second Avenue corridor that has been the subject of much attention, with incidents between pedestrians and vehicles becoming almost a weekly item for the Police reports, with the most frequent area for problem crossings running from 2nd to 9th street through the downtown core.

The full letter from the Lions to City Council can be reviewed below:

The issue of pedestrian safety in the city has been a frequent theme for many of the City's Council members in the past, you can review some of those conversations from our City Council Discussion archive.

For more items of note related to the work of Emergency Responders in the Northwest see our archive page here.

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