Spokesman-Review Letter to the Editor
Enough to make a pedestrian cross
Walking to school should be easy enough. I live only a couple of blocks from Ferris High School, but every day I dread the task because of the monster between points A and B. It’s called the Thurston and Regal intersection.
It’s hard enough turning onto Regal in a car, but what’s worse is crossing it without a layer of metal and air bags between you and the speeding vehicles. Trust me when I say it’s not fun standing at the corner for over a minute waiting for a gap in traffic or a nice person who stops for pedestrians.
Once a woman was polite enough to stop, but then honked and yelled at me, “This is not a crosswalk!” It might as well be. A large number of people cross there every day, many of whom are high school students trying to get to school on time. This leads to students waiting for a gap in traffic so they can run to the lane dividers then run again to the school grounds.
Crosswalk indicators are necessary to protect pedestrians at the Thurston and Regal intersection if drivers continue to ignore them.
Sheridan Robak
Spokane
I went to Ferris many, many, many (x20) years ago and it seems like the problems we had then still exist today, only probably worse because of the increased amount of traffic. Could this location be a candidate for a complete street treatment sometime in the future?
6 comments:
Aren't cars required to stop for pedestrians at this intersection? It sounds like a good place for a "sting" operation.
- Ventura
Not a bad idea Ventura. That's where citizens and the neighborhood council come in. Due to the economic situation, there aren't a lot of spare police officers to go around, so it usually takes members of the community contacting the police department and explaining their problem to get an emphasis patrol started. Hopefully Ms. Robak's letter will spur others in the neighborhood to get together on this issue and do something about it.
I heard that the Spokane City Council had a meeting about this issue a couple weeks ago. Is that correct? And if so, do you think it was because of this letter?
I hadn't heard that @i.have.no.worries. I'll see if I can't find out more about it. If that's the case, it was probably a combination of the letter (because the folks at City Hall DO pay attention to what's in the newspaper) and a complaint from either the neighborhood council or a citizen in that area.
Yeah that would make sense. Do you think they might put in a crosswalk there?
Okay, I checked with the City and they checked with anyone who might have been involved in the meeting you mentioned and no one seems to know anything about it. Based on that, I'd say no, they're probably not going to put a crosswalk there anytime soon. Sorry. If you're a resident of the neighborhood though, maybe you should contact your neighborhood council and see if it is something they could tackle.
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