Gallagher Lake residents could see an underpass to address pedestrian safety concerns in the community. File photo
Despite support from the local citizens committee, an underpass below Highway 97 in Gallagher Lake is at least a few years away.
Mark Woods, the Community Services Manager at the Regional District of the Okanagan-Similkameen, says the idea for a pedestrian pathway under MacIntyre Bridge is “on the radar” of both the RDOS and the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, but hasn’t been formally started.
The Gallagher Lake Citizens Committee voted to support the design and construction of such a pathway at its Dec. 4 meeting, after efforts by Area C Director Terry Schafer to make the project a reality.
Schafer proposed using RDOS gas tax money to jointly fund an underpass with the ministry, meaning the project wouldn’t require any additional taxation to residents.
Schafer said he’s been working to find a solution to the dangerous pedestrian conditions on the highway through Gallagher Lake, and that an underpass would go a long way to making things safer.
“My vision was to connect the east side of Gallagher Lake to the west side in a safe manner. I work for a highway contractor and I go through that area quite a lot. Especially during the summer when there are a lot of tourists there; you can see people trying to get across the highway, and they look left and look right but there’s no end in traffic. So it’s just pretty easy to see there needs to be a safer way to get across,” Schafer said.
Bill Barisoff, a member of the Gallagher Lake Citizens Committee, agreed.
“You go down there and people are running across that section of road,” he said.
He stated that without a burden to taxpayers, and since it won’t disrupt traffic, the committee couldn’t see any drawbacks to the plan.
“Anything we could do, we just thought it would be a safe way of getting people from one side of the road to the other without slowing down traffic,” he said.
Woods said the project is a “great vision” and “a great idea,” but that “it’s not a project that’s on the list of objectives for the regional district for 2016.”
Currently, he said, the RDOS is focused on completing a development plan for the KVR trail. He said that public consultation last year led to a “tremendous amount of work” for the department, as it negotiates with various entities to make the trail a reality.
An underpass in Gallagher Lake falls “outside the mandate of the regional trails program,” so it would count as its own rural project. Since the ministry owns the MacIntyre Bridge, the RDOS has to get ministry approval to begin any projects involving it.
Woods said the first step in that process will be for the ministry to do some “high-level estimates” to figure out exact costs. Once that is done the ministry will work the project into a yearly budget.
“It’s a very positive product. Anything that can help with pedestrian safety is a good thing, but these things do take time,” Woods said.
By Trevor Nichols
