Victoria’s crosswalk budget got a $200,000 shot in the arm Tuesday.
At the suggestion of Coun. Ben Isitt, councillors supported allocating $200,000 from surplus funds toward crosswalk improvements.
Victoria council, which has launched an ambitious $7.3-million campaign to build bicycling infrastructure, is finding itself under pressure to make more significant improvements for pedestrians.
In a letter to councillors, the advocacy group Walk On, Victoria says the city is proposing only two sidewalk projects for 2016, costing a total of $350,000. Meanwhile, a program begun in 1989 to install or upgrade crosswalks is “barely creeping forward,” says the letter, written by Walk On co-chairs Sally Reid and Arielle Guetta. Three crosswalks are slated for installation or upgrade this year for a total cost of $108,000 and projected spending for crosswalks between 2016 and 2018 is $330,523.
Councillors also received a 166-name petition calling for installation of a high-visibility user-activated crosswalk at Hillside and Higgins Street.
City director of engineering and public works Fraser Work said the cost of a single crosswalk ranges from $25,000 to $100,000, depending on what is required. He said a report outlining crosswalk priorities should come to council in the near future.
Coun. Geoff Young argued against the spending.
“I think we should warn the public and our neighbourhood associations that we’re not using technical evaluation anymore and that our crosswalk decisions are going to depend on council pet projects and petitions and neighbourhood pressure,” Young said.
But Isitt said creating an additional pool of funds should serve to take politics out of the equation.
“I think the advantage of having that kind of fund is that when we get this matrix back from staff, we can avoid just having to have a political decision, and one off, and winners and losers, and aim for a bit more equity between neighbourhoods,” Isitt said, adding the additional $200,000 would fund “an orderly priority list.”
Coun. Marianne Alto said it’s important to “inform the neighbourhoods that we’ve understood that crosswalks are a huge priority throughout the city.”
Coun. Pam Madoff said the initiative was supportable because funds are not earmarked for any particular crosswalk project and because every project will be judged by technical criteria.
Mayor Lisa Helps argued against the expenditure, urging spending restraint.
