Riverview’s Public Works Director says the Town is working on a policy to try and steer groups away from using crosswalks for recognition.
This issue was raised during the Riverview Town Council meeting on Monday. Councillor Jeremy Thorne inquired about the plan to have a veteran silhouette crosswalk for Remembrance Day in November.
“You and I recently had a conversation about that via email. So your department is developing a policy, a crosswalk policy, to be implemented in the fall. My only issue here, director, is that we had given the veterans the green light. I gave them the green light. The Town of Riverview gave them the green light, and now we’re saying that we’re going to delay the crosswalk,” Thorne questioned.
RELATED: Request in Riverview for a crosswalk honouring veterans in 2025
In response, Michel Ouellet said the Town can paint something, but the issue raised questions from the traffic committee, which were broader than just dealing with the one request for a veterans’ crosswalk.
“This would be the third request to paint crosswalks. There seems to be a focus on crosswalks, and the concern was brought out that a crosswalk is actually a traffic device, and so we were hoping to steer these types of requests away from traffic devices. We can paint the asphalt, we can paint a sidewalk, we can paint anything, we can paint the grass, but try to steer people away from having to these desires to paint traffic devices a different colour. The colour white is chosen for a crosswalk,” Ouellet said.
He added that municipalities across Canada are working on this, and have been since COVID-19 in 2019.
“A subcommittee was formed with TAC (Transportation Association of Canada), from various traffic experts throughout Canada. We have a traffic expert who sits on our traffic committee, and he actually sits on that committee. So the idea was that this committee would probably develop policies much sooner than today. I mean, it’s been five years. However, I know they’ve reached a lot of roadblocks. They’re struggling to develop consensus among these various traffic experts throughout Canada,” Ouellet said..
He says they’re just hoping to have something in place before they get a fourth request.
No policy has been drafted yet, and research is still being done.
“I know we are targeting crosswalks, I assume it was an innocent request that started this all, many, many years ago. Except that crosswalks are a traffic device, and there are risks to not following TAC standards. That’s been proven over and over again, on various items, such as traffic signs, reflectivity, traffic size, sign size, over and over again. I mean, the world is getting more and more litigious. There’s just another opportunity to cause an issue. So we’re just trying to prevent this from happening,” Ouellet emphasized.
Thorne felt the veteran crosswalk should be grandfathered in, ” We all owe them our freedom, right?”
Ouellet reinforced that this isn’t against the veterans; he just felt they should consider the policy to try and steer away from traffic devices.
Mayor Andrew Leblanc stated that the Town Council made a commitment to the veterans just before Remembrance Day last year, and the town needs to honour that.
“So if it’s not a crosswalk, I think we have to do something, if it’s asphalt, or if it’s the sidewalk. This came up at the end of October last year, and the clock’s ticking for Remembrance Day this year. Something needs to happen because we made that commitment. So I’d like to see something come back to us as to what that’s going to be, or, if it’s not a crosswalk, what is it going to be.”
