Crosswalk lights installed in northeast Edmonton after push from persistent students

A group of students from a northeast Edmonton school is celebrating a successful push for action from city hall.

After several near-misses at a nearby crosswalk, students from Homesteader School started a letter-writing campaign to rally city hall to install lights at the intersection of Hermitage Road and Habitat Crescent.

“A lot of our classmates almost got hit by a car so we talked about it and our teacher… told us we have a voice,” Grade 4 student Keyla Marran said.

The entire school population was encouraged to write letters to area Councillor Aaron Paquette, who said he received several letters from students concerned about their safety. Some students even drew pictures, he said.

“The community has been talking about this intersection on and off for a couple of years and it got to a point where the students of Homesteader decided they had to do something about it,” he said Thursday.

City staff took the message seriously and conducted a site survey. Paquette said collisions, near-misses and traffic volume are also factors considered by staff, who noticed a surprising increase in traffic in the area and decided the lights were in fact needed.

“We’re going to take some action. We’re going to put these lights in for the kids.”

Pacquette said the letters were imperative in highlighting the intersection and moving it up the city’s priority list.

“What was really, really cool is that it was the teachers and the students, and they worked together. They created this message that was unignorable,” he said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "What was really, really cool is that it was the teachers and the students, and they worked together. They created this message that was unignorable," he said.

“The fact that these kids decided, ‘We’re going to do something about it and we are going to all work together,’ was really inspiring to me, it was inspiring at the city. And it showed even if you think that your voice is small, you can accomplish really great things if you work together.

“The end result isn’t lights. The end result is that their community is safer and the kids have learned that they have a really strong voice.”

It’s a sentiment that’s echoed by the students.

“Happy and safe,” Marran said when asked how she felt about the new lights. “It was exciting because we were writing letters… and happy to have a cross light.”