A downtown businessman and resident is urging the city to take action on Front Street before someone is hit by a car.
Brennan Williams, owner of Sugar Rays Boxing, has raised concerns at city hall about a number of issues on the eastern side of Front Street, which is the area near the former Army & Navy Department Store. At the Jan. 9 council meeting, Williams appealed to the city to take action to address safety issues related to a curb that separates Front Street (the thoroughfare) and Frontage Road (the parallel section of the road that serves local businesses.)
“It's a cheap issue to address; it's a simple issue to address,” he said. “And it involves immediate safety of everybody on that street.”
According to Williams, the curb separating Front Street and Frontage Road basically invites motorists to jump the curb.
“One councillor and another city staff, while they were down here, watched this happen in first person and actually told somebody to move because the car was coming over the curb,” he said. “People end up on the wrong Front Street, they realize they're on the wrong Front Street and they want to jump the curb to get on the correct Front Street.”
In other cases, Williams said motorists “jump the curb” in order to bypass traffic when it’s busy on Front Street.
“You can jump over the curb and turn up Sixth, and people do it all day when they're in rush hour,” he said.
Given the large number of vulnerable people who are in that area at any given time, Williams believes it’s critical to ensure pedestrians are protected from vehicles.
“Somebody is going to die,” he said. “It's easy to address. It's easy — put up a proper barricade; put up some bollards, whatever you want to do.”
Williams said the city went out of its way to protect pedestrians when it created the Front Street Mews (on the west side of Front Street) but it hasn’t done anything to protect pedestrians on the eastern side of the street. He said that fixing the curb is a quick fix that will improve pedestrian safety.
“We've got to start doing stuff on East Front Street. We've got to start improving safety,” he said. “There's so many problems down there. Let's just get one off the list.”
Council approved a motion by Coun. Jaimie McEvoy to refer the issue to staff and have them report back to council. He said he’s concerned about the issue, having walked in the area with Williams and seen the issue firsthand.
“According to the BC Coroner, the leading cause of death for homeless people is tied between self injury and death by a blunt instrument — and that blunt instrument is almost always a car,” he said. “Where you have gatherings of people that are accessing services, that may be having troubles in life, and where there's not sort of the clear barriers between the road — and this is a truck route — and the people who are in the vicinity, you potentially have problems.”
The city’s overnight shelter, located in the former Army & Navy Department Store, is accessed via Front Street.
“I agree with the delegation that there is a safety issue here that needs to be addressed,” McEvoy said. “The technical expertise is with staff. Moving referral with report back to council guarantees that people will see.”
The Lower Mainland Purpose Society, which operates the nightly shelter, checked with the building manager, in response to an inquiry from the Record about whether "curb jumping" has been detected in the area.
"The building manager at Army & Navy says that she does see people jumping the curb sometimes, and it is when they realize they are on the wrong road," said acting executive director Lynda Fletcher-Gordon in an email to the Record.
📢 SOUND OFF: Is Front Street safe for pedestrians? What should the city do? If you have thoughts to share, send us a letter.
