Some measures will soon be implemented to address safety concerns at East Columbia Street and Brunette Avenue while others will come in 2025 and subsequent years.
At its July 8 meeting, council unanimously supported measures that are aimed at improving the safety at East Columbia Street and Brunette Avenue. Following a pedestrian fatality at that location in February 2023, the city hired a road safety consultant, TranSafe Consulting Ltd., to review the intersection and to recommend short-term and longer-term measures to improve the safety of the intersection for all road users. (No criminal charges were recommended in the 2023 fatality.)
A staff report stated the draft study identifies a range of short-term modifications to address observed safety concerns, but many of the more significant safety recommendations would be addressed through a comprehensive intersection redesign process that would “most likely” require the acquisitions of all or portions of adjacent private properties on one or both sides of East Columbia Street.
At its July 8 meeting, council directed staff to proceed with short-term road safety initiatives outlined in a staff report. These include:
- Adding tactile attention indicators at all crossings.
- Providing a crosswalk warning sign with an advisory speed limit for the Brunette Avenue right-turn crosswalk.
- Removing landscaping adjacent to the retaining wall and widening the multi-use pathway to the edge of the retaining wall along the west sidewalk of East Columbia Street.
- Removing or trimming overgrown vegetation along Debeck Street.
- Providing lane designation signage for the Brunette Avenue approach to encourage truck operators to use the left lane from the downstream turn onto Front Street.
- Providing a “signal ahead” warning sign for the Brunette Avenue approach.
- Providing guidance marking through the intersection for the Brunette Avenue approach.
- Providing advance warning of the horizontal curve through the intersection for the Brunette Avenue approach.
- Repairing localized trip hazards along sidewalks and crosswalks.
- Painting the curb face on the “channelization island” for improved visibility.
Other short-term recommendations to improve the overall efficiency of the intersection include:
- Establishing a no-right-turn-on-red movement for northbound East Columbia Street.
- Replacing the right turn-only sign with a no-left-turn sign for eastbound Cumberland Street approach to East Columbia Street and adjusting other warning and regulatory signage for improved visibility.
In addition to these measures, which staff say can be implemented “relatively quickly” with limited design, the report said additional “more complex measures” could be implemented over the next year. These include:
- Reviewing potential curbside fence options for the constrained sidewalk on the west side of East Columbia Street.
- Providing streetlights on both sides of the Brunette Avenue right-turn crosswalk.
- Installing pedestrian-controlled crossing for the Brunette Avenue right-turn crosswalk.
- Working with the property owners of 303 Cumberland St. to remove three trees within the private property to provide a multiuse pathway.
- Providing “sidewalk ends” signage and creating a more formal termination, such as a gate or landscaping, for the sidewalk on the east side of East Columbia Street.
- Establishing no-right -turn-on-red movements for northbound East Columbia Street.
- Replacing the right-turn-only sign with “no left turn” sign for eastbound Cumberland Street.
The review found that vehicle speeds exceeding the 50-kilometres-per-hour speed limit were measured for westbound vehicles on Brunette Avenue as they approached the intersection to go onto East Columbia Street (heading towards the downtown).
“Observations indicate that the speeds combined with drivers needing to turn through the intersection can result in vehicles encroaching into adjacent lanes or travelling close to the west crosswalk and sidewalk,” said the report. “The vehicle speeds combined with a high proportion of heavy vehicles can make the walking and bicycle environment on the west side of the intersection uncomfortable. The speeds and high vehicle volumes can also result in tailgating and sudden braking, increasing sideswipe/overtaking and rear-end crash risks.”
How much will it cost?
According to a staff report, the “immediate term” safety improvements would cost about $35,000 and can be integrated into this year’s road safety improvement capital budget. It said the remaining short-term improvements, which would require an additional capital allocation of about $250,000, would be completed in 2025.
At the July 8 meeting, council also approved recommendations directing staff to:
- Incorporate a $250,000 capital request into the 2025 budget process for short-term safety improvements to be funded from the Growing Communities Fund.
- Initiate a comprehensive intersection redesign process aligned with previous transportation planning competes and with the current road safety review recommendations, assessing potential property and utility impacts, implementation costs, external funding opportunities and implementation timeline.
Coun. Ruby Campbell questioned staff about how quickly the city could get moving on the short-term and more complex measures being proposed.
Lisa Leblanc, the city’s director of engineering, said the intention is for the short-term measures to be implemented within the next 12 months.
At the same time, she said staff would begin initiating the larger intersection redesign work, which would likely take multiple years of project initiation analysis, design iterations and tendering. She said construction would likely start three to four years from now.
“In terms of short-term measures, there are multiple individual measures,” she said. “So, we wouldn't do all of those all at once. … The idea is that all those measures would be completed within a year, but we would be likely to implement them incrementally.”
Leblanc told council that adding signage, trimming landscaping, and altering signals are the types of things that could happen soon.
“Some of these measures could happen relatively quickly,” she said. “Others, we know that the process takes a bit longer.”
Leblanc said a comprehensive intersection redesign would be a “significant” capital project.
“It would be in the multiple millions of dollars likely to complete a project of that scale, which by its very nature requires more analysis,” she said. “It certainly requires engagement and collaboration with key partners including TransLink, the BC Trucking Association, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.”
Leblanc said staff would pursue grant funding through various agencies for that work.
“The work is complicated because of jurisdictional issues. Brunette Avenue is part of the major road network and it's a truck route. East Columbia is currently a truck route as well. So, there are multiple challenges in terms of implementing the scale of change,” she said. “Another consideration is the property implications in this area. It's an extremely constrained area, so there may be property implications, which require time and process to work through as well.”
