Crosswalk safety on city's agenda

SANDPOINT — The city’s Public Works Committee is taking up crosswalk safety when it meets tonight.

The discussion comes about two weeks after a Sandpoint man was fatally injured while trying to cross Fifth Avenue at Cedar Street.

“We’re going to talk about what we can do as a city to make that crossing, and in fact all crossings, safer not only for pedestrians but for bicyclists and all forms of non-motorized transportation,” said Councilwoman Carrie Logan, a member of the committee.

The meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. in City Hall.

Logan is asking Public Works Director Kody Van Dyk to give a presentation on engineering matters and for Police Chief Mark Lockwood to address the enforcement and education sides of the issue.

It’s hoped the Idaho Transportation Department, which has jurisdiction on the highway routes snaking through town, will join the discussion at some point, Logan said.

Anthony James Joerger, 46, of Sandpoint, was hit by a pickup truck shortly after 5 p.m. on Nov. 19.

Idaho State Police said Mark Harley McElroy, 49, of Athol, was stopped on Cedar facing westbound. He turned the Ford F-250 he was driving south onto Fifth, but failed to see Joerger, who was walking westbound in the crosswalk.

The collision remains under investigation and it remains unclear if criminal charges are being contemplated.

Joerger’s death marked the first crosswalk fatality since December 2006, when Mark Eugene Carter was hit while attempting cross Fifth at Poplar, just a couple of blocks north of where Joerger was hit.

Carter’s death brought better overhead lighting and crosswalk signs.

“What I would like to see — in a perfect world, if we had the money — is in-lane pedestrian activated lights,” said Logan.

The city of Hailey installed the aforementioned crosswalk delineators at an intersection where a pedestrian was killed in 2004. The lighting discs can be flush with the road surface to accommodate snowplows and bi-directional so they outline the crosswalk and backlight pedestrians.

However, the low-profile lighting systems cost abou $45,000 to purchase and install, said Logan, who is looking at the possibility of using resort city tax dollars to fund such a project.

“They’ve got two crosswalks done like that,” Logan said of Hailey.