Katlyn Van Horn, 17, had the honour of turning on the new traffic lights at the reconstructed intersection of Callander Bay Drive and Highway 94, Thursday.
A serious accident four years ago that left a local school bus driver paralyzed motivated her 1,500-signature petition to the Municipality of Callander, which led to a $5.9-million Ministry of Transportation project to make the intersection safer. Along with the lights came better turning lanes, improved sight lines, pedestrian signals, walkways, and sidewalks.
“When I was younger, I would always see the accidents happening while I was on lunch at my school,” Van Horn told reporters during a media conference across from M.T. Davidson Elementary. “So, I for years watched all of the accidents happen and saw people being severely injured and heard about it from my dad (a Callander Fire and Emergency Services firefighter).
“And one year, one of my bus drivers had got severely injured and she’s not going to be able to (take care of herself) for the rest of her life,” she said. “And I just felt so bad because I just noticed that this light was really changing people's lives because that was one of the first people I knew who got injured and I wanted to do something about it.
“So when I was in Grade 8, I wrote a petition and I went around during Canada Day, during Funfest, and I got signatures and I brought it to the city,” she said about gathering 1,500 signatures supporting change.
Katlyn's father, Troy, and Callander Mayor Robb Noon both recall a high school student they knew who died at the intersection while riding a motorcycle.
Callander Fire Chief Todd Daley said there’s been about three serious accidents annually at the intersection requiring emergency personnel response.
“Over the last 10 years … it's averaging about two to three accidents a year, and that's incidents that the fire department respond to, that doesn't count fender benders or where there's no emergency response other than from police for investigations,” Daley said, noting there was minor two-car collision this weekend that didn’t require ambulance personnel or firefighters.
“But some of them been really serious, a number of fatal accidents. You know, the one that triggered Katlyn doing the work here was a woman who was a bus driver who was is paying the price today, a serious accident with, you know, a lifelong impact," he said.
“So, I'm really excited that this is here. I think it's going to make a big difference,” Daley said, describing how the intersection wasn’t designed for the volume of traffic with multiple sight-line issues with vehicles travelling different speeds.
“If you look at just coming around a corner into a lane (driving westbound from Corbeil on Highway 94), you're coming down a hill (traveling northbound from Wasi Corners), you're coming from two roads where you're doing, you know, 40 kmph (coming from Callander’s Main Street), I think 60 kmph here into an 80 kmph zone. Let’s just say it was designed back in the day when the traffic volumes were less.”
