A side street beside Marshview Middle School will get a safety upgrade this summer, thanks to a group of grade 7 students from the school.
Kirstin Harpur’s Grade 7 class started to notice the safety issues with the lack of sidewalk on Dufferin Street in Sackville on their daily walks to the retention pond. The situation became worse once the snow arrived, and the students ended up walking on the road. Their teacher Kirstin Harpur heard their complaints and encouraged them to take action.
The students wrote two letters to Sackville mayor and council explaining their concerns, and it looks like this summer, Sackville public works will be making improvements to Dufferin Street in response.
Erica Butler dropped by Marshview Middle School late last week to hear from the students themselves. Here are some of those voices:
“We are always forced to walk on the road on our way to the pond,” says Ivan Hampton, “so we want a sidewalk so we stay safe from a cars on the road.”
“We decided to write to the mayor because of how busy this road can be when we’re on our walks,” says Ashley Kay. “And after school, even, it gets really messy with all the cars and people crossing the street.”
The students asked for an extension of the current concrete sidewalk that starts at the top of Dufferin at Main, and continues down to just before the school entrance. But town engineer Dwayne Acton says a full concrete sidewalk, which would include curbs and gutters, is a much more expensive project that would likely only happen along with road reconstruction, which for Dufferin is not yet due.
Instead, Acton says the asphalt on the skatepark side of Dufferin will be widened and a painted white line added to delineate the pedestrian area. That project will be able to happen this summer, with public works doing part of the work, and a contractor brought it to lay the asphalt.
Crosswalk markings and signage will also be added where the current Dufferin sidewalk and the new asphalt extension meet, near the entrance to Marshview Middle School. Acton expects that work will also get done sometime this summer, when other crosswalk paint is refreshed.
Kirstin Harpur’s class says it’s not exactly what they asked for, but they are satisfied with the response to their concerns.
“The students learned a lot about who’s involved in making any kinds of changes for a small town,” says Harpur. The class had been talking about politics in social studies class anyway, says Harpur, so the real-life lesson came in handy.
“I’m super proud of them,” says Harpur. “We’ve been walking to the pond every day and we’ve racked up almost 160 kilometres of walking this year. And so it’s been a great opportunity to not just get out and have some exercise, but also be involved in local issues and make a positive change for the community.”
