For residents living along Hollywood Crescent in Victoria, traffic has always been an issue.
The problem starts along Dallas Road where the speed limit is 50 kilometres per hour, but when you get to Hollywood Crescent that changes to 30 kilometres an hour.
“People race along Dallas Road and then they don’t slow down when they come onto Hollywood Crescent, and because it’s so curvy here it makes it really dangerous for adults to cross the street and you can imagine for kids,” says resident Valerie Sovran.
“I don’t think any of the motorists are truly complying with the speed limit on Hollywood Crescent,” says fellow resident Holly Hatch.
There have been numerous incidents and close calls around the twisting turns and with Halloween right around the corner, the neighbours decided to go to the City of Victoria with a plan for safe trick or treating.
“We asked the city if we could close just for a couple of hours on Halloween. They said that even though they get a few such requests every year, it’s not their policy to grant permits for Halloween,” says Sovran.
Now the neighbours are hoping for a change of policy from the city.
“We see other events like the marathon or the bike race where there’s no problem shutting it down for that. So I really don’t think it’s a lot to ask to have a safe Halloween and allow Hollywood Crescent to have closures so that children can safely cross the street,” says Hatch.
In addition to Halloween, they’re also hoping to have more permanent traffic-calming measures introduced to the area.
“We’re really hoping that they come in. We’ve heard that they’ve studied it before, but come in. We need speed bumps, we need crosswalks, we don’t have a single crosswalk right now,” says Hatch.
Until then, they’ll be making sure to look both ways before they cross the street.
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Cole Sorenson
