A resident of Whonnock has started a petition for a gravel walkway by Whonnock Elementary, which she calls a serious and urgent safety concern.
Deepa Bissessur started the petition around two weeks ago, outlining the need for school children, young families, and caregivers who walk the sides of 112 Avenue daily to get to school, or the daycare located in the Whonnock Lake Centre.
As of Monday, May 11, she had collected more than 100 in-person signatures for her petition, which she only started collecting on May 8, and another 185 online.
Bissessur wants to see the drainage ditches gone and gravel walkways put in on both sides of the road on 112 Avenue between 272 and 280 Streets, in addition to along Hynes Street.
These routes, she said, are used daily by children walking to and from school or bus stops; parents pushing strollers to the lake, the daycare, and preschool programs; young children riding small bikes alongside their parents; families walking with dogs; and horse riders.
Seniors on scooters ride in the middle of the road, she said, because they have nowhere else to go.
And, Bissessur noted, residents within four kilometres of the school don’t qualify for bus service, and their children either walk or bike to school, often in low light conditions.
There are also lots of visitors to Whonnock Lake during the summer, which now has food trucks, making it a bigger attraction for sun-seekers.
“It needs to be safe. Safe for these people that come to visit, safe for us residents, and safe for the children,” she said.
Bissessur noted the city only cleans the ditches twice a year – not enough to maintain the ditches.
Closing the ditches would be better for the environment, Bissessur claimed, as people throw garbage into them frequently, contaminating the area, and weeds clog the drain pipes, which could lead to flooding in a downpour.
Residents currently take on the work of removing the garbage and mowing the ditches.
“So that money to clean the ditch, if they were to save that money over five years, they will be able to make a gravel walkway this year,” Bissessur claimed.
Steven Faltas, director of engineering for the City of Maple Ridge, said pedestrian safety is always top priority. The city appreciates when residents proactively come up with ways to improve pedestrian safety, he added.
However, he said, the installation of sidewalks and other pedestrian infrastructure is contained in the city’s Strategic Transporation Plan, which is typically done once every 10 years, and the plan doesn’t identify improvements in this area at this time.
Every decade the department looks at the city’s entire transportation infrastructure to figure out where to allocate funding and where the biggest impact can be made for the citizens of Maple Ridge.
Transportation pieces are assessed on importance and prioritization, with limited funding, explained Faltas.
To install upwards of three kilometres worth of gravel path in the area with varying topography, overhead and underground utilities along that corridor, as well as roadside drainage and ditches in some of the areas, is complicated.
“Without having done a full assessment and study, it wouldn’t be as simple as filling in some ditches and creating gravel pathways. This would be a complex endeavor and would require some detailed design work to be able to get a cost estimate,” explained Faltas.
In 2024, city staff did work with the school district and the administrators of Whonnock Elementary School to assess pedestrian safety around the school, resulting in improvements to the school crosswalks and, later this summer, he said, larger school zone pavement markings are going to be installed.
Bissessur is hoping the city can install gravel walkways before the 2026/27 school year begins.
“This is aqua-friendly if we do have the walkway, it’s good for the environment, good for the salmon because the ditch is contaminated, it is good for the pedestrian, it’s good for the children, the seniors, the horses,” she said. “It’s a win all the way.”
Faltas said his staff will welcome the opportunity to discuss this further with the local residents and the school district at some point in the future.
The petition can be found at: https://c.org/p7ZZfTzCtH.