There was a day when what was known as Highway 8 ran through the middle of towns all the way up the Pontiac, forming the main streets of Luskville, Quyon, Shawville, Bryson, Campbell’s Bay and Fort Coulonge, among others. In those days, it was logging trucks stacked high with timber that were the most perilous as they rumbled through our downtowns, often at speeds as close to highway speeds as was possible through the winding streets of our towns. In all cases, highway bypasses have been built, enabling all traffic to avoid our downtowns, for which businesses located on our main streets paid a heavy price. In response, some businesses have relocated to the highway bypasses, effectively making them the new high streets, requiring lower speed limits and sidewalks to promote safety.
But there remain a few places where a highway still rips right through the middle of town, and Shawville is such a place. Highway 303 is the main connection that links Otter Lake, and points beyond, south to Hwy 148 at Shawville. And while it is clearly a highway through almost all of its 35-km length, it is not a highway in the village of Shawville. It is a street like any other and needs to be treated as such.
But this is far from the case. Every day, scores of vehicles come hurtling down Shawville’s Centre Street, many of them massive trucks rolling at close-to-highway speeds through downtown. It probably doesn’t help that there is a steep hill that descends into town, or that there is a traffic light at the bottom of the hill that you might just squeak through before it turns red if you go fast enough. Never mind that it is a tight, two-lane street with barely enough room for a sidewalk in places. Never mind that it passes through two neighbourhoods where there are schools.
And it was in one of these school neighbourhoods, the one at the top of the hill near Pontiac High School, where an accident that could well have been tragic occurred this past Friday. While the police have been short on details, we have confirmed that a 16-year-old student was hit by a car while trying to cross Centre Street in the pedestrian crosswalk.
For years, there have been efforts to improve this crosswalk, but because Centre Street is also provincial Highway 303, it is under the control of the Quebec Ministry of Transport (MTQ). Apparently, attempts by Shawville to manage the portion of it within the town’s borders have not been met with much cooperation from MTQ, so the town eventually went ahead and repainted the lines and put up a sign with a white light on it. This was a big improvement over what had previously been there, and kudos to the town for making it happen. But it is still a far cry from what is needed, as both the sign and the light are easy to miss and are often obscured by large vehicles.
What is needed, at a minimum, is to designate the section of Centre Street in the vicinity of the high school as a school zone with a posted 30 km/h speed limit, as is the case further down the street in front of the Dr. S.E. McDowell school, and to put up a proper pedestrian crosswalk complete with yellow flashing lights overhead that signal all traffic to stop whenever a pedestrian is preparing to cross.
This is not a new issue, nor is it an unreasonable request in the interests of keeping our children safe. If it is not possible to reconcile a highway that runs right through the middle of town with the safety of village pedestrians, perhaps we’ll have to build another bypass, for which there is no shortage of precedent.
