13 locations accounted for more than half of crashes involving pedestrians on municipal roads in West Van
Changes to the way the District of West Vancouver measures road safety could make it easier for neighbourhoods to request traffic calming and lower speed limits in the future.
At a recent council meeting, councillors approved a new policy making it easier to designate certain streets as high traffic hazard areas based on factors like speeding, traffic volumes, collision history and proximity to schools and playgrounds.
Staff recommended a more lenient approach after none of the eight requests for traffic calming received last year with accompanying petitions from neighbours met minimum requirements to be considered dangerous. But most were close, according to a staff report, prompting staff to recommend the change.
Ambleside resident David Thistle told council the process to get approval for traffic calming measures has so far been bureaucratic and frustrating.
Thistle said for more than five years, traffic problems on 13th street have been ignored by the district.
Thistle said his group of neighbours presented a petition with 180 signatures asking for enhanced signage to try to get drivers to slow down. “The data confirms that 15 per cent of the drivers are speeding,” he said. Yet the district’s policies have so far excluded the street from the municipality taking action.
Sean O’Sullivan, senior manager of roads and transportation planning for the municipality, said after Thistle approached the municipality, the district did an assessment of traffic on all the streets from 11th to 15th. That showed “the highest speeds are actually on Fulton,” he said, which is already a 30 kilometre per hour zone, and “the road with the highest number of collisions is 14th Street.”
Based on data collected by the district, “13th Street at the time didn’t stand out as a high priority compared to other locations,” he said.
But O’Sullivan added since that time, the request to put in a sidewalk and safety features on 13th, between Inglewood and Kings, has come in from the school safety program. The district is now looking at a sidewalk and traffic calming for that stretch of road, he said.
O’Sullivan added the original standards to assess road safety used in other municipalities didn’t work for West Vancouver. “That’s why we’re recommending lowering the threshold to make it easier to proceed with traffic calming initiatives,” he said.
According to statistics collected by ICBC, in the five years from 2020 to 2024 there were a total of 81 pedestrian collisions on all roads in West Vancouver, approximately 16 per year.
There were 13 locations that recorded two or more pedestrian collisions, according to a staff report. Those 13 locations account for just over half of the pedestrian collisions on municipal roads. Seven of the 13 locations were along Marine Drive, and four of the high-collision spots were on 15th Street.
Although it’s too early to say if it’s a trend, overall the number of pedestrian collisions has been decreasing since 2018, said O’Sullivan.
Staff will be reviewing the details of the pedestrian collisions at the 13 locations that had more than two pedestrian collisions, said O’Sullivan, in order to develop pedestrian safety projects over the next two years.
In addition, the municipality will be partnering with ICBC to have a consultant conduct detailed safety assessments of the Marine Drive and Clyde Avenue intersections on 15th Street.
O’Sullivan cautioned that private roads, such as those belonging to Park Royal, and those under provincial or Squamish jurisdiction weren’t included in the road safety analysis.
A staff report noted that even though most roads in West Vancouver are under the district’s jurisdiction, 55 per cent of collisions resulting in injuries occur on roads that are not under the municipal jurisdiction.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the top crash location resulting in injuries in West Vancouver is the Hwy 1/99 – Taylor Way interchange. It had 204 casualty collisions over five years between 2020 and 2024.
The one Ministry of Transportation red light camera in West Vancouver is at that intersection, monitoring red light violations on Marine Drive heading in an eastbound direction only.
From 2019 to 2024, there were 1,930 red light camera tickets issued from that camera.
Among the road safety improvements planned over the next two years are a multi-use pathway on the north side of the Taylor Way interchange, signal improvements at Marine Drive and 31st Street, Marine Drive at 17th Street, Green Drive at 16th Street and Mathers Avenue at 15th Street. Sidewalks are also planned for areas on Mathers Avenue and 13th Street. Other road safety measures include installing rapid flashing beacons at pedestrian crosswalks and installing vehicle speed feedback signs.
O’Sullivan said the municipality is also being more aggressive about trimming trees and bushes to improve sightlines at intersections in light of a court decision last year that blamed the District of North Vancouver for not maintaining vegetation at a pedestrian crosswalk.
Coun. Scott Snider asked staff if lowering the official speed limit to 30 km/h makes a difference to how fast drivers are usually going.
O’Sullivan said the district previously did a study which showed it made no difference in speeds on any of the roads where the speed limit was lowered to 30 km/h.