The City of Calgary has replaced more than 132 mid-street crosswalk signs in an elementary school safety project, with most due to drivers hitting them.

Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner asked about the issue last week during Question Period at the regular meeting of Calgary city council.

Back in 2023, after what was deemed a successful pilot project involving 52 randomly selected elementary schools, the City of Calgary placed the mid-road signs at more than 300 school locations across Calgary.  The signs are placed on the centre line area of a roadway to note that a crosswalk is ahead and to slow down.

Coun. Penner asked how those signs are being monitored for repair or replacement.

“At the end of June last year, in-street school crosswalk signs had been placed in crosswalks for schools serving kids and kindergarten through Grade six,” Penner said.

“Residents are noting both their benefits of slowing traffic while also raising concerns about their durability.”

Doug Morgan, GM of Operational Services for the City of Calgary said that they’ve had a few issues with the signs.  He said of the 361 that were installed, 132 signs have been replaced at 80 locations.

“The majority of those signs were due to inattentive drivers hitting the signs, and we’re able to replace them,” Morgan said.

“We’re thankful that it’s the signs and not other more vulnerable objects that would be impacted by this.”

Morgan noted that there are a handful of the signs that have been vandalized in areas where citizens aren’t happy with having the signs in the road.

Feeling safer is not necessarily ideal: Advocate

Laura Shutiak with the advocacy group Youth En Route, which encourages safe, active mobility options for young Calgarians, especially in getting to and from school, said parents tell her they’ve seen them on the ground near elementary schools around the City of Calgary.

“So, it always makes you wonder how someone can plow into something like that,” she said.

“It’s a little concerning when these are in crosswalks by schools and then knocked over.”

Previously, city data showed a slight reduction in speed in these areas, which would have a 30 km/h speed restriction. Pedestrians also expressed that they felt safer in the crosswalks.

Shutiak said ‘feeling safer’ is a bit worrying.

“How pedestrian feels is that you almost don’t want them to feel safer, because then they’re more careful if they don’t,” she said.

She said the fundamental issue with how cities are built is that it allows drivers to make mistakes, but not kids.

“That’s the very heart of the problem that we have with pedestrians and even sometimes death or injury,” Shutiak said.

“We need to design better so that kids can screw up. Because kids screw up, that’s what they do. Their testing limits there.”

Shutiak said that having a little piece of tubing with a sign on it won’t make students safer.

“It’s a narrower crosswalk. It’s designing roads for reduced speed,” she said.

“It’s not just a sign that says 30 kilometers an hour. It’s designing the street, making it narrow, so you do go 30 kilometers an hour.”

Morgan said the City is taking action right away to address the replacements.

“We are reviewing their placement to make sure that they are safe and we limit the damage and making any changes that we need in order to make sure they’re up,” he said.

Shutiak said that if student safety was the real driver in this initiative, the mid-road signs would have a concrete base.