Sunrise to sunset, Windsor Park in Oak Bay will see all generations tromp its grass, soar on swings, or whack at a ball. It routinely hosts dog walkers and daycare and community classes.
At what is often used as a main entrance, the sidewalk dips down to meet the concrete path leading to the pavilion building.
It’s the only apparent pedestrian concession, at the entrance resident Heather Cochran uses when taking her two small children there aboard a stroller. On the other side of the street there is no dip, no curb cut to allow rolling up of a stroller or mobility aid. There, her older son Elliott has to disembark the stroller so she can get it, with toddler Lewis still on board, up on the sidewalk.
“There’s not an easy way to get into the park especially if you have a stroller or kids on scooters,” she said. With no sidewalk on the park side, crossing there is the safest access for them to head home, or to that new ice cream shop down the street.
A longtime user of the park, since Elliott’s baby days, they’ve attended classes from music to karate at the pavilion and played in the adjacent park. She realized Oak Bay may simply not realize accessibility issues exist for pedestrians.
“It felt like an accident getting ready to happen,” she said.
Cochran started an online petition and neighbourhood campaign to gauge whether it was truly a community concern.
“This has sparked something with a number of residents who are speaking out now about their experiences. There’s a divergence of experiences of people living here and using the park, and how people are perceived using the park,” she said.
The petition calls for a crosswalk and traffic calming measures, and now has more than 300 signatures. It immediately captured the attention of council when presented in late May.
On Monday (June 9), council tasked staff with investigating pedestrian safety options around the one-block park bordered on all sides by roads.
“We recognize that Windsor Park is an incredibly busy park. The playground that’s been revamped recently’s drawn a lot more people, so this is a normal process as things change we just want to relook at them and make sure the infrastructure is suitable for safety and to meet the current needs,” Mayor Kevin Murdoch told the Oak Bay News.
The motion, presented by Coun. Andrew Appleton, was broad, asking for staff to look a the entire circumference of the site.
“We didn’t want to be prescribing where that should be, so we’re really leaving it to the engineering team to come back with their suggestions,” added the mayor.
He’s appreciative of the public feedback and impetus to have another look at the heavily used space Cochran describes as a “kids’ paradise”.
“Sometimes we’re not aware of usage change,” Murdoch said. “We’ll find a path that helps make it a little safer for pedestrians.”
That said, he reminds park users that humans are imperfect and even infrastructure has limitations.
“Nothing we do here will fix all those problems. It’s still really important for people to take appropriate precautions, because there are distracted drivers, there are bad things that happen, and we just want to make sure people don’t rely too heavily on a crosswalk for safety. We all have to take personal responsibility,” Murdoch said.
“And if you’re a driver, please drive slow around the park. It’s a well-posted 30 km/h, but sometimes people don’t pay attention to that.”
There’s no definitive date on when staff are expected to report back, except “not years but not weeks.”
Cochran hopes staff will reach out to those with lived experiences living near or using the park and its amenities as they craft their recommendations. “We want to keep this a priority.”
In the meantime, Cochran keeps the conversation going, and the petition online to “keep the pressure on.”
