When her son in Grade 4 at Braefoot Elementary came home from school with a note asking for a crossing guard near the school, Trudy Trotter decided to apply.
That was 22 years ago, and Trotter has been stopping traffic for kids on their way to school every morning and afternoon since, at the intersection where Cedar Hill Cross Road meets Epsom Drive and Braefoot Road.
Now, however, Trotter is packing up her stop sign and her traffic cones. Thursday, the last day of school, is also her last day at the corner.
“I’m going to miss my routines — all the smiles and waves I get from people who go by,” Trotter said. “It’s a real crossroads here.”
Over the years, Trotter has become a familiar face to those who cross the intersection. She greets everyone who crosses at her corner and gets waves from employees in Saanich work trucks and the drivers of Handy Dart buses as they drive by.
“Some people I know by name, but to most people, I’m just the crossing guard and they are just the man with the bright yellow shirt, or the girl with the really long hair,” she said.
Whether she knows their names or not, Trotter knows people’s routines. She knows who usually comes through the crosswalk last, and she sometimes waits a little after her shift in case the little girl is late. She knows what school most of the children go to. She even invited one boy’s grandmother — visiting from the Prairies — home for tea.
“You never know who you’ll meet when you hang out on a street corner,” she said.
Trotter was hired to help children cross the road on their way to several nearby schools, but she also holds out her sign for pet owners walking their dogs, older adults out for a morning walk, and anyone else who steps into the road at her corner.
Trotter monitors two crossings — the north-south intersection across Cedar Hill Cross Road and the east-west crossing on Braefoot Road. Epsom and Braefoot don’t line up exactly at the intersection, so she positions herself halfway between crosswalks to be ready to help someone across from either direction. When someone needs to cross in both directions, Trotter runs from one intersection to the other to get ahead and push the button for the traffic lights.
There’s a chance Trotter will be the last crossing guard to work at this corner. Saanich is currently reviewing its crossing-guard program and Trotter’s intersection is under review.
Audrey Smith, president of the Greater Victoria Crossing Guard Association, said the intersection doesn’t score highly under the municipality’s criteria determining where crossing guards are needed. Those criteria include the number of vehicles and pedestrians that pass through an intersection, among other factors.
But she believes this intersection is made safer by Trotter’s presence. “I’ve had reports from Trudy of instances where she has been the reason why someone was not hit by a car,” Smith said.
She said the intersection is “tricky,” because the roads aren’t aligned, and they are hilly and curvy, which means drivers can’t see the crosswalk from far away.
Trotter agrees that a crossing guard is needed on the corner. “I would rather not think about that,” she said of the idea that there might not be a replacement for her in September. “For the number of people, the number of vehicles, the number of bicycles that go through there, it’s definitely needed.”
Smith said having a crossing guard can also improve the flow of traffic for drivers, because the guard can take a constant trickle of people and gather them into groups. She saw this effect when a crossing guard was put in at Doncaster Elementary last fall.
“People told me they saved 10 minutes on their commute after the crossing guard went in,” Smith said.
While the future of the intersection is uncertain, Trotter has plans for her retirement. She is looking forward to celebrating her 50th anniversary with her husband, Bob, this summer, and taking a trip to India in the fall.
But when September comes, it’ll be strange not to go back to her corner, she said.
“I’m going to miss watching the neighbourhood wake up in the morning. When you smile and say good morning to somebody, you almost always get a smile and a ‘good morning’ back. It’s a good way to start the day,” Trotter said.
