No walk in the park: Liverpool walk audit exposes hurdles to pedestrian safety around new library
People participate in a walk audit near the Thomas H. Raddall Library off the White Point Road in Liverpool. (Rick Conrad)
People took to the streets this week to brave some cool and wet conditions, and traffic, to get an idea of how safe it is for walkers around the new Liverpool library location.
Hike Nova Scotia held a walk audit in the area. Program manager Catherine Droesbeck said the organization has done about 15 walk audits around the province through its NS Walks program. But this was the first one for Liverpool.
The Region of Queens asked the group to hold the event to help get community input on how to encourage people to use active transportation, like walking and cycling, to get to and from the library.
“We’ve been doing walking audits now for the past nine months or so all over the province in communities big and small, who are all interested in improving the experience for pedestrians in getting around their communities,” Droesbeck said in an interview.
“Then we’ve been going in and helping them do the audit, which gives us some good data in terms of people’s experience, but also it’s a great way to engage community with government officials and other organizations to bring people together to say, ‘This is what we love about our community, but this is how we we’d like to make it better.’”
About 15 people participated in the walk audit, which took participants on a two-kilometre route from the library, along Harley Umphrey Drive, up to White Point Road, along Payzant Street, across Parker to Union, over to Waterloo and back to the library.
Morgan MacDonald, the region’s new physical activity co-ordinator, said walking is one of the most popular and accessible forms of physical activity.
“And one of the barriers to walking for many people is safety,” he said.
“So having a walkability audit allows us to take a certain portion of the region, which is around our new library location in Liverpool, and looking at the accessibility and the barriers to active transportation around this location and tying it into the existing infrastructure of the town of Liverpool. So by trying to address some of the barriers to people walking and rolling, we’re hoping that they’ll feel comfortable and confident to make that part of their everyday life.”
When participatns got back to the library, they were asked to rate the route on various factors, such as traffic, sidewalks, crosswalks and safety, out of an overall score of 120. Most were in the 40 to 50 range, with one as high as 92.
They said that even though there are no sidewalks on roads around the library, the shoulders are wide enough in some areas for walkers. But they added that the unevenness of the unpaved shoulders would make it difficult for people in wheelchairs to navigate.
They also talked about the lack of clearly marked crosswalks on the route, and suggested installing crosswalk flags at certain intersections.
When regional council decided to move the library from downtown to the new location, residents were concerned about safety because the area has no sidewalks and limited lighting.
Sylvia Hurley of Liverpool was one of the walkers. She says she loves to walk, but it can sometimes be hazardous.
“And I have a lot of concerns about areas of walking, crosswalks, how walkers are treated locally, not stopping at crosswalks, not paying attention to us. I wanted to express my concerns big time,” she said on the route.
“I used to walk out on this street (White Point Road), but I haven’t walked here for a very long time. It’s dangerous, very dangerous. It’s narrow. But I’m fortunate because I can come up George Street from my house and be to the library which suits me. I don’t have to come out on to this road, but not everyone’s that fortunate.”
Hurley said she thinks the walking audit is a great idea.
“But if they’re going to do an audit, do the audit but honour what people say. Don’t just, ‘Oh yeah, they complained about this, they complained about that.’ Let’s do something about it.”
Hike Nova Scotia’s Droesbeck said responses from the walk audit will be compiled in a report to the municipality.
“I think we identified some, what we’ll call low-hanging fruit today, that the community can do that will go a long way to make people feel safer when they’re walking this particular route. So whether it’s marking the crosswalks better, looking at speed limit signs, more some benches and things that will make it look more like, OK, people want to walk here and walk safely. So I think there’s some possibilities there.”
The region’s MacDonald said this was only the first of a few community consultations about active transportation, including walking and cycling. More are planned this summer through Cycling Nova Scotia in Caledonia, Greenfield and again in Liverpool.
He said the results of this week’s walk audit are important to highlight for regional staff and council the community’s concerns about walking in the area.
“So it was looking at how all of these different systems interact and how we can make infrastructure and spaces that work for everybody and encourage healthy activity and safe activity in our community.”
Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com
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