A daily parade of drivers blowing through a stop sign at Richmond and Hospital streets has one couple pleading with the city to do something – and quick.
Glenn Antonelli and his wife, Tanya, live in the 300 block of Hospital Street, just south of Richmond Street. Every day they watch drivers travelling along Richmond Street ignore the three-way stop at Hospital Street, in front of Richard McBride Elementary School.
There haven’t been any serious accidents, yet, Antonelli told the Record, but he can’t sit back and wait.
“It will happen, it’s just a matter of when,” he said.
Antonelli said it hasn’t always been this bad. They’ve lived on Hospital Street since 1998, and it’s only in the past handful of years that traffic along Richmond has become unbearable.
He and his wife have been emailing the city for several years, trying to get their safety concerns addressed. In September 2017, Mayor Jonathan Cote came out to meet them at the intersection, to see first-hand what Antonelli describes as “pretty brutal.”
After the mayor’s visit, the city installed reflective strips on the stop sign poles and added more signs warning drivers to slow down and stop.
But it’s not enough to stop drivers, Antonelli said.
Last year, his wife contacted the police department pleading for someone to come out and see the situation for themselves. They hoped that if someone from the police department saw the mess they see every day, there would be cause for increased enforcement.
But the officer who was sent to observe drivers at Richmond and Hospital didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, Antonelli said.
The police department told him they couldn’t justify spending resources on additional enforcement in the area.
“It's so disheartening for the city and the police to turn a blind eye to this problem. I know I am not the only resident on this street who has pleaded for help. Honestly, it's a tragedy in the making,” Tanya wrote in an email to the city and police department earlier this month.
Antonelli said if the police department won’t increase enforcement, he’d like the city to install speed humps to force drivers to slow down.
But he’s not hopeful that’ll ever happen.
Antonelli and his wife are back at Square 1, and that means heading back out to the intersection to film the mess. They hope that’ll be enough evidence to convince the city and police department that changes are needed, and fast.
In an emailed statement to the Record, the New Westminster Police Department said, to date, there have been no collisions reported at Richmond and Hospital streets.
“We work closely with the community to know about the traffic issues in the city. We are actively part of committees, and our traffic unit responds and does enforcement at intersections where there are reported violations or with high collision frequency,” the statement read.
“Our traffic unit, along with the City of New Westminster officials, has monitored the location to determine if there are on-going violations or if the roadway design plays a factor.”
