Residents on the Capilano Road speedway are asking the District of North Vancouver to make one of its most dangerous pedestrian crossings safer.
Soon after launching, more than 190 people signed Meghan Mitchell’s petition calling for flashing lights to be installed at the Mt. Crown Road crosswalk, which leads into Capilano River Regional Park.
“Presently, it’s an extremely dangerous crosswalk,” she said. “Pretty much no one stops.”
The crosswalk gets used every day by kids going to school, seniors, dog walkers and visitors to the park. But, because of the speed drivers tend to do on Cap Road, the volume of traffic going to and from its major destinations, as well as the topography and curve of the road, it is particularly dangerous, Mitchell said.
According to the ICBC, there has been about one crash per year at the intersection between 2020 and 2024 but there are no stats on near-misses, of which there are many, Mitchell said. That includes a terrifying near miss she had when a driver in a heavy duty truck was exiting the park.
“He was shoulder checking to see if cars were coming down Cap Road, and if he wasn’t in a giant diesel truck that took a couple of seconds to rev up and get moving, he would have flattened me and my dog. We literally had to dive out of the way,” she said. “I have almost been hit by a car here, I can’t even tell you how many times. And every time I need to cross, I get really stressed out because cars aren’t stopping at all.”
Mitchell has lobbied the RCMP for more speed enforcement on that stretch of road, but said she understands there are a lot of areas for them to patrol.
And while there are other options that might slow drivers down – like a controlled intersection, narrower roads or automated enforcement – Mitchell acknowledged hers is a relatively small ask for the District of North Van to follow through on.
“I think it’s only a matter of time before someone gets hit here. So why can’t we be proactive about this?” she said
Mitchell’s petition can be found at change.org/p/install-pedestrian-activated-flashing-lights-at-capilano-rd-crosswalk-for-community-safety
