By Don Plant
Motorists could see more warning signs and even speed bumps along McKinley Road.
City council has asked staff to look into short-term measures that would encourage drivers to slow down along the narrow, twisty road. Monday’s death of a 21-year-old woman has prompted officials to find immediate improvements to a treacherous thoroughfare.
John Vos, Kelowna’s manager of community services, isn’t ruling out speed bumps as an interim solution.
“Getting people to go as slowly as possible on this tight corner will improve safety,” he said. “It’s very scenic, but you have to drive it intelligently (through) a lot of sharp curves.”
Shayla Driver may have been driving too fast as she rounded a hairpin curve along the south shore of the McKinley reservoir. She lost control of her Buick sedan, which rolled down an embankment, crashed through the ice and sank upside-down.
Similar spills in the last few years led the city to hire an engineering consultant to design two improvements — blast the rock-face near the curve where Driver died so crews can move the road away from the reservoir, and upgrade the sharp corner at the west approach to the waterway.
The blueprints are ready, said Vos, but council won’t vote on the $300,000 plan until 2013.
Coun. Mohini Singh, a resident of McKinley Landing who drives the road every day, convinced her colleagues to ask staff this week to come up with a quick fix before then. They’re to deliver a report at the next council meeting Jan. 9.
“Council took this very seriously,” Singh said. “I’m glad staff will report back as soon as possible.”
Residents are calling for concrete barriers to prevent vehicles from crashing into the reservoir. There’s too little flat land between the road surface and the embankment to make room for them, said Vos.
“You need extra space to put the barriers down and have enough room for the barriers to move back if they’re hit.”
The long-range plan is to build another route connecting McKinley Road to Glenmore Road just north of the landfill. That requires a developer building in the area to help defray the costs. The market for new housing is too soft right now, said Vos.
For now, staff must consider inexpensive options, like more warning signs and traffic-calming strategies.
Maintenance crews are aware of how challenging the road can be for motorists in winter. It has shady areas prone to ice buildup. They sanded it before Monday and had checked it before 5 a.m. and at 11 a.m. that day, said Vos.
“There was no ice in that area (where Driver crashed),” he said. “Road maintenance said there was no problem at that location. They found icy spots in other (sections) of McKinley Road.”
