Saanich approves $21M Road Safety Action Plan

Saanich council unanimously voted to approve the plan last week, intending to bring the district closer to targets for its Vision Zero—a European system to reduce road fatalities—targets, adopted in 2022. It’s the first road safety plan to be adopted by an Island municipality.

The plan is expected to cost $21M, with the municipality putting forward $5M in existing funds, with the remaining $16M coming from taxation grants, borrowing, and new revenue streams. New revenue stream ideas will be explored over the next year and will be included in the 2026 financial plan. Council voted to add $2M to the 2025 financial plan to cover improvements that can be made in the short term, within the next two years.

Saanich’s roads often get a bad reputation, being home to ICBC’s top dangerous intersections in Greater Victoria each year. However, most of these high-crash intersections are on provincially owned roads.

Still, every 10 hours a crash occurs somewhere in Saanich, according to RSAP. Between 2016 and 2020, 12 fatal crashes occurred in the region. There have been several notable collisions involving pedestrians in Saanich—including teens killed or injured—in recent years at intersections and crosswalks, creating more pressure for change.

The Road Safety Action Plan (RSAP) includes 30 actions to improve road safety, with nine listed as “priority” and 21 as “supporting.”

Actions include:

• Improving line of sight at intersections
• Reviewing and reducing speed limits
• Prioritizing public transit and other modes of transportation
• Improving crosswalks and signage

The municipality selected 20 high-crash priority intersections and corridors—including along McKenzie, Shelbourne, and Quadra—for the municipality to focus its investments on. Saanich Mayor Dean Murdock stressed during last week’s council meeting that while these intersections will be the first to see improvements, all intersections eventually will be reviewed, as the RSAP is scheduled to be updated every five years.

Many of Saanich’s high-crash intersections are also its busiest, which makes it challenging to improve conditions without inconveniencing commuters. To address this, staff is looking at convenient and low-cost options for intersections with similar crash causes.

One of the recommendations is to ban right-hand turns on red lights at five intersections along McKenzie where collisions on right turns have been common. Burnside is prone to crashes in its four-lane cross-section, so that part of Burnside may be reduced to three lanes. These changes are likely to be the first ones implemented, according to Troy McKay, senior manager of transportation.

Murdock said road safety is one of the main reasons why he wanted to become mayor.

“I felt strongly that no parent should be worried about their kid not coming home from school and older adults shouldn’t be concerned that they can’t get around in their neighbourhood…because it’s not safe to do so,” he said. “We want to make sure that everyone can get around safely in our community.”