A crosswalk with pedestrian-controlled flashing lights has been installed on a risky stretch of road shared by Surrey and Langley Township.
The city of Surrey website said the crosswalk was installed at the intersection of 196 Street and 72 Avenue on Jan. 30 as a temporary measure while “full traffic signal and pedestrian indications are constructed” at the site.
The intersection improvements will include a left-turn bay.
Residents in both communities have been campaigning for safety improvements to 72 Avenue, which has been the scene of several serious accidents.
In September, an 83-year-old pedestrian was struck and killed at 72 Avenue and 198B Street, on the Langley side.
Before that, there were incidents where a young boy was hit while rollerblading and a 19-year-old woman was struck in a hit-and-run crash and left lying in a ditch.
Late last year, Township council unanimously approved a set of traffic lights at the border intersection, approving $125,000 to install signals. That is half the cost of the traffic lights, with Surrey paying the rest.
Surrey is also rebuilding the four blocks of 72 Avenue leading up to the Langley border, adding landscaped medians to separate eastbound and westbound traffic, as well as boulevards between the travel lanes and sidewalks, adding bicycle lanes, restricting left turns at some intersections, improving street lighting and other improvements.
It should all be completed by August.
Improvements to 72 Avenue on the Langley side are under consideration by Township council, which added $1.6 million in road upgrades between 196 and 200 Streets to a list of possible 2015 construction projects.
If the improvements make the final cut following a review of all proposed projects, most of 72 Avenue between 196 and 200 Streets would be widened to four lanes, traffic lights would go in at the 198B intersection where the elderly pedestrian was killed last September, and an open ditch at the same location would be filled in.
