Let’s check out the pages of the Optimist from March 1963.
The photo above shows the new pedestrian ramp over what was called Tsawwassen Highway.
The article stated the "Delta Manor PTA safety committee put yeomen work getting built, is finished and in use. Here a car drives under it without worrying about the walking and biking children at the intersection. Cyclists do not use it all the time as it takes a muscular soul to make it up and down the ramp with a bike, but most of the boys prove their valour by using it twice daily."
Fast forward almost 60 years and, while Ladner still has a pedestrian overpass, the City of Delta has been lobbying to also get one in Tsawwassen without much luck.
In an interview last year, Mayor George Harvie said it’s time to do something about the busy intersection by the Tsawwassen Mills before someone is killed. He said planned to renew the push for pedestrian overpass at 52nd Street and Highway 17.
“We’ve been asking for that for a long time and, unfortunately, it wasn’t deemed necessary and that’s absolutely unacceptable,” Harvie said.
Things had gone quite for the past couple of years on Delta's request for the province to build a pedestrian overpass following a reply by former transportation minister Todd Stone, who noted that following the mall opening ministry staff conducted engineering evaluations, and no safety issues were observed, contrary to concerns Delta had been raising.
Delta used drone footage to try to convey the situation for pedestrians at Highway 17 and 52nd Street, a situation the municipality says was already dangerous prior to Tsawwassen Mills opening.
“These assessments found that pedestrian volumes were lower than the forecasted volumes which were considered when the business case was undertaken to address the merits of a pedestrian overpass. In addition, staff did not observe pedestrian overcrowding on the traffic islands or any other pedestrian related safety concerns,” Stone said in a letter to Delta council.
An earlier business case commissioned by the ministry, looking into whether an overpass was needed, found such a structure, estimated at roughly $5 million, offered no significant benefit and is not justified.
“The current intersection improvements, like similar intersections within the Lower Mainland, provide adequate accommodation for pedestrians and cyclists,” the report concluded.
According to Delta’s engineering department, that conclusion was incorrect, considering how pedestrians trying to access two large shopping malls have to cross an increasingly busy highway.
Pedestrians have to traverse a 40-metre crosswalk across seven lanes of traffic and two additional turning lanes beyond the pedestrian refuge islands.
Pedestrians trying to cross at night are placed at even further risk, while ferry traffic exacerbates the situation, the engineering department claimed.
The city also used drone footage of pedestrians trying to cross, showing one shocking footage of a person deciding to take a risky run across the highway.
