19 new street lights have now been installed along Gook Road.
Mary Sjostrom, the Cariboo Regional District Director for Area A, says it has made quite a difference.
“I’ve driven home that way a few times and it really, you know with the concern of the safety for the kids going to school and the runners and walkers and what not, it really has made an incredible difference. We’ve gone right down from Highway 97, we’ve went right down to the edge of the Cariboo Regional District, which is right by the trailer park.”
Sjostrom says the project was a true partnership.
“I really want to note ICBC. They were partnered with us on Maple Drive and they came to the plate with almost 10 thousand dollars. We want to thank them and also the Ministry of Transportation, they have been tremendous as well, and they’re going to be installing beacon crosswalks. We have one for Gook for 2023 and my understanding is there should be a couple over on Maple by the schools, and those are similar to what we have downtown with Kinchant. The School District, they were tremendous with hosting a meeting at the school”
Sjostrom says this project happened fairly quickly.
“The process on Maple Drive was a little different because it was the very first time that I had done it, and it hadn’t been done really in a populated area like that. We didn’t think of a catchment area, we were just thinking about the corridor, so we learned that people in the catchment area that feed onto that street to get out to Highway 97 to go north or south. So this time we just identified a catchment area right away and went from there.”
Sjostrom says around 365 homes in a catchment area will be paying into the CRD function for the lights.