While both of Sackville’s intersections with traffic lights feature scramble crosswalks, in most other parts of the country, they aren’t as common.
“I know that they’re in Toronto, Vancouver, a lot of the larger municipalities have at least one,” says Steven Oliver, Stantec senior planner and smarter mobility Practice Lead for Canada.
Oliver says if you Google-search a scramble crosswalk, you’ll find images of massive intersections with hordes of people crossing.
Sackville has neither a massive amount of traffic nor pedestrians, but, according to Michelle Sherwood, Superintendent of Public Works with Tantramar, we do have the right ratio of vehicles to people to warrant the scramble crossing.
“We typically have through the school year more pedestrians than we do traffic in a small town because a lot of students are walkers” she says. “So in the case of having more pedestrians, a lot of time the scramble crosswalks are implemented because it’s a whole lot safer.”
Though, that wasn’t necessarily the reason they were or are still used in Sackville. Sherwood has worked for the municipality for nearly 30 years. When she started, the traffic lights used to be mechanical, complete with cogs and people could cross in any direction.
“We changed (the downtown traffic lights) back in the 90s, late 90s. And the town was so used to a scrambled walk that council and management of the day decided it was best put it back, for safety,” says Sherwood.
While the intersection at Main and Mallard, by the highway, has far less pedestrian traffic, it is a scramble cross walk for the same reason.
“It’s kind of dangerous to switch them,” she says. “The university students come and go, so you got a fluctuation of them, but the older people within the town and the drivers were so used to it that if you switch it, sometimes that can be a danger.”
But according to Oliver, scramble crosswalks are coming back, in certain scenarios.
“They’re growing in popularity,” he said. “A lot of smaller municipalities are putting them in, especially in on Main Streets in areas like that … really want to prioritize people who are walking and rolling and getting to their getting to their destinations.”
