THUNDER BAY – The Lakehead Regional Safety Council is pushing for warning lights at highway intersections in Thunder Bay along Highway 11/17.
A Thunder Bay woman recently faced this issue firsthand when she would have been killed by a transport truck if not for a warning from another driver.
Bill Vanderwater, the council's secretary, said when you think of expressways, Thunder Bay is definitely different.
“Expressways as we know them are overpasses with turnarounds and cloverleafs and all kinds of ways of accessing them. Through Thunder Bay, we have traffic lights which stop traffic and sometimes traffic is difficult to stop.
“Trucks take a long distance to stop and they're coming through at highway speeds. This is the main corridor through Northwestern Ontario to get from east to west and from the south as well,” he said.
Vanderwater said it takes about six seconds from when a light turns yellow until it turns red.
“Traffic is supposed to be able to stop. It sometimes does, but sometimes it doesn't.
“When it doesn't, it could be catastrophic. We have people crossing those intersections, particularly at Red River Road and Arthur Street where the people are walking across four lanes of traffic to get to the other side.”
They're also pushing strollers, using walkers or wheelchairs, and there are people on bicycles, he said.
“These are all people that need to cross safely. It can be treacherous at times trying to make it all the way across those four lanes before traffic is halted in the direction coming through on the main highway.
Vanderwater said if they're not going to make this a true expressway with an overpass then the next best option is to put in early warning lights.
“We have one set of early warning lights here at Balsam Street and it's the only set along the corridor through Thunder Bay.
“There is a set of warning lights on each of the intersections on the Harbour Expressway. There's no reason, in our mind, why they can't be installed on these intersections where there's a lot heavier flow of traffic,” he said.
Vanderwater said the council has drafted a petition and has used it to collect signatures. They have now collected about 250 signatures.
“We have submitted them to the office of our MPP, Lise Vaugeois who has addressed it in legislation and presented it to parliament. Because parliament is in recess right now for the summer, there’s probably not going to be any action on that for now. At least that gives us some time to collect more signatures.
“When parliament comes back into session in the fall, then Lise can, on our behalf, ask the question again and present it again to see what parliament is doing and what the government of Ontario is planning to do, if anything,” he said.
There have been very few incidents on the Harbour Expressway, in part because of the warning lights, Vanderwater said.
“That alone tells us that there is something to be gained – how much can be gained? That is an opinion that a lot of people have, some people will say it really won't make a whole lot of difference because driver mistakes are driver mistakes.
“I don't know if it's going to be a big change, but I'm sure it's going to make a difference and any difference is going to save lives,” he said.
Every driver needs the opportunity to start slowing down as they approach an intersection, he said.
“We started this process and I don't know that there is going to be a lot of things that we can do from this point forward other than get the public behind us by having them sign the petition that we drafted to show that there is support for the idea.
“If the general public supports it enough and there are enough voices that say, ‘let's do something,’ maybe the government will be forced into considering that at least,” he said.
