Protest held at former 4-way stop location

A group of Wallaceburg residents are not happy about the removal of the 4-way stop at the Murray Street and Reaume Avenue intersection.

The citizens launched a protest on Tuesday morning at the location, as they have concerns for the safety of students walking to Holy Family Catholic School and Wallaceburg Christian School.

Krystal Gyuricza, who helped organize the demonstration, told the Sydenham Current something needs to be done.

“We need to get something so that the children are safe when crossing for school in the morning,” she said.

“This yellow light is not even bright. We have already had four cars go through the light while children are trying to cross the road.”

Gyuricza, along with a handful of other residents, held signs in protest of the 4-way stop removal, which took place on September 1, and gathered signatures for a petition they are creating as well.

“We need to get either a brighter light or we need our four way stop back, because people are still stopping and people are still travelling at a high rate of speed to go through here,” Gyuricza said.

“From Base Line to Margaret Ave., there is no reason for them to stop. We need something because there is a school right there. Like I said, we have already had four cars go through the light while it was flashing because you can’t see it during the day.”

Gyuricza said the group plans on showing up for a couple of days in the morning this week to help raise awareness about the changes.

“We are going to try to do this for a couple of days just to make sure the kids are safe crossing for school because there are a lot of kids that cross here,” she said.

Plans are in the works to create an online petition and to make a formal presentation to Chatham-Kent council, she added.

“We need to go in a large number to make an impact,” she said.

“We need to do this. Our community needs to get together to do this. It’s our kids, it’s somebody’s kids. There was already an accident within the first three hours of the 4-way stop being taken out on the Friday.”

Gyuricza said despite living in the area, she has avoided the intersection since the all-way stop was removed.

“Hopefully people will come out if they can, if people are not working,” she said.

“Hopefully we will do something here.

Gyuricza said Wallaceburg Coun. Carmen McGregor came to speak with the protesters and Mark Ceppi, engineering technologist for the Municipality, was at the intersection on Tuesday morning as well.

Councillor will continue to discuss issue with staff

McGregor said on social media that her and North Kent Coun. Joe Faas originally fought to keep the stop signs and crossing guards at Murray Street and Reaume Avenue intersection in Wallaceburg, along with the location across from Dresden Area Central School.

“We lost the vote,” McGregor wrote.

“We tried to bring it back and gained the support of a number of other Councillors, but still lost the vote.”

McGregor said this past spring, when construction was underway on McNaughton Avenue, Wallaceburg Counc. Jeff Wesley and her “fought hard against administration” to have the signs remain, but were only successful in having them stay in place until the construction was complete.

“In order to revisit this motion, I would need a two thirds approval by council to proceed and that is if the Mayor will grant my request, as this has come before council a number of times,” McGregor wrote.

“My next option is to wait until one year passes from the last attempt to bring it forward once again. I know that this is not what everyone wants to hear and certainly not what Coun. Wesley and I want. I will regardless (talk) to administration once again.”

Staff says pedestrian crossover is easy to use

The day the 4-way stop was removed, Ceppi told the Sydenham Current the pedestrian crossover devices are easy to use.

“Whenever you come up to the edge of the roadway to start crossing, always hit the button,” he said.

“Then your next step would be to look at the traffic and make sure there is a gap and make sure they are stopping for you and then you go. Then per Highway Traffic Act regulations, as long as someone is on the cross walk, all vehicles have to stop. They cannot cross the crosswalk at all. Even if a pedestrian is on one side of the road and you are travelling on the other side of the road, you still have to stop until all pedestrians are completely off the crosswalk.”

Ceppi said even if the light is flashing if you are a pedestrian just coming up to the crosswalk, it’s always good to hit the button again.

“That will reset the timer and add the full time again,” he said.

“If you are arriving after some other pedestrians you may not have the full amount of flash time. We have them programmed for 19 seconds and that is based on the crossing distance and plus an initial flash time which is kind of like a reaction time for people to know that traffic is stopping. So whenever you come to the crosswalk, press the button whether it is flashing or not.”

Ceppi said Municipal crews have replaced all the applicable signage in the area as well.

“Right around where we use to have the ‘stop ahead’ signs, we now have ‘pedestrian crossover ahead’ signs. It is a yellow overhead sign that shows the crosswalk symbol, and then right above that we have the circular ‘new sign’ to emphasize that it is a new device that we have installed. We will be keeping the new signs up for the next month or so.”

Ceppi said once people are used to it, the ‘new sign’ portion will come down.

In the spring of 2016, Ceppi said municipal staff visited the Murray Street and Reaume Avenue intersection and conducted traffic counts.

“The result was that the pedestrian crossover was warranted for this intersection but the all way stop was not,” Ceppi said.

“We can’t run both, so the decision was made to install the pedestrian crossover and remove the all way stop.”

Crash at intersection

The Chatham-Kent Police Service confirmed that a crash occurred at the intersection on Friday, a few hours after the 4-way stop was removed.

The collision was called in at 3:36 p.m. and involved two vehicles, police say.

A 22-year-old Wallaceburg man was charged with failing to yield.

Police say there were no injuries.

Damage is pegged at $7,000.

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