There will be no additional crosswalk at the intersection of Baker Street and 17th Avenue S.
At the April 28 meeting, city council followed a Cranbrook in Motion committee recommendation that it should not build a third crosswalk at the intersection, which is to the southwest corner of Mount Baker Secondary.
Coun. Denise Pallesen, who sits on the Cranbrook in Motion committee, noted that it had already looked at sidewalks at this particular intersection, but revisited it after receiving the ICBC Traffic Control Review and the Street Sign and Road Marking Manual.
"This is where you have an engineer and ICBC look at every single intersection and road sign and set of lights to make sure that they are compliant with the B.C. Standards," Pallesen said. "We're trying really hard to follow the guidelines, so there's a standardization for the entire city."
She said the standardization will happen as the projects and renewals come up, and won't happen overnight.
Coun. Diana J. Scott agreed that there should be no additional crosswalk.
"I work in that area and we already have a crosswalk going in each direction of the road, and to have two, side-by-side, parallel, when they are six steps from each other doesn't really make sense," Scott said. "Then also, it impedes a lot of traffic."
She said if people don't want to take those extra steps and would rather cross where there's no crosswalk, then they are taking their safety into their own hands.
She said the standardization makes sense as well.
Coun. Sharon Cross wondered about the crosswalks on 14th Avenue and Baker, which are parallel and don't meet the ICBC guidelines.
Pallesen replied that the crosswalks would change as they come up, so for that one they would stop maintaining one of the crosswalks.
Mayor Wayne Stetski said the 17th Avenue crosswalk is there to use, but some work is needed.
"We do need to finish the sidewalk on the Mount Baker school side of the street," Stetski said. "I think that would then encourage the use of that sidewalk. Right now that kind of ends on dirt on that Mount Baker School side."
Coun. Gerry Warner opposed the recommendation.
"The more crosswalks the safer we are, but I guess I can understand what everyone else is saying," Warner said.