Osoyoos certainly isn’t the only town in Canada to have a major highway as its Main Street.
We are, however, unusual in that our geography makes it unlikely a bypass route will be built around the town when we reach a certain size.
Several other communities where I’ve lived built bypasses when the population reached somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 people, allowing through traffic, especially large trucks, to be diverted out of the main business area.
With only one realistic place to cross the long and narrow Osoyoos Lake, the possibility of a bypass route for Hwy. 3 is unlikely.
As a result, the town’s Main Street will become more and more clogged in summer both with tourists staying here and with through traffic.
And it’s not just summer. Even in the off-season, sometimes trucks and cars line up in both directions making it difficult to drive across Main Street in the absence of traffic lights.
Soon after arriving here, I developed several techniques to get across Main Street when it’s busy.
One involves inching onto Main Street as a right turn, driving one block and then making a left turn off Main Street, hoping all the time that no one rear-ends me.
Another involves driving on 78th Ave. down to Spartan and crossing Main Street at the traffic lights.
For pedestrians crossing, it’s even more dangerous.
The crosswalk at 87th St. has good overhead flashing lights and good signage. And the intersections at Spartan Dr. and Cottonwood Dr. have proper traffic lights with a button to press for a walk signal.
At other crosswalks, however, you take your life in your hands. It seems that for many drivers, stopping for a pedestrian at a crosswalk is optional.
I do have sympathy for drivers some of the time. At many crosswalks the paint is badly faded. There are no overhead lights. The crosswalk signs are far to the side of a very wide road and are only in the driver’s peripheral vision. And angle parking can obstruct a driver’s view of pedestrians.
Sometimes though, I’ve had to jump out of the way when a car has raced through when I’m in the middle of a crosswalk.
I can only try to imagine how seniors with limited mobility cope.
Hwy. 3 is a provincial highway, so the town would need provincial cooperation to initiate improvements.
At the bare minimum, crosswalks should be repainted and better signage installed.
Ideally, more flashing overhead lights should be installed at major crosswalks and perhaps a red light or two to actually stop traffic at difficult crossings.
Given how wide Main Street is, perhaps there is room to add left-turn lanes for westbound traffic turning south on 89th St. and for eastbound traffic turning north at 87th St.
In another community, I once wrote a column suggesting getting rid of angle parking. I was practically driven out of town by people who told me that seniors don’t know how to parallel park and that angle parking allows for more spaces. So I will leave that one for others to debate.
Compared to major cities, the traffic problems in Osoyoos are very small scale.
But as the town grows and tourism increases, they will become more challenging – especially with our senior population.
At the very least, I hope we can discuss some solutions to improve safety and traffic flow.
Richard McGuire is a reporter/photographer with the Osoyoos Times.
