City paints sidewalks for new train safety campaign

The City of Regina is hoping to grab people’s attention while they are on their cellphones near train tracks.

The city painted “See Tracks? Think Train” stencils on nine sidewalks in the city that cross railways.

Norman Kyle, director of roadways and transportation with the City of Regina, said they’ve noticed an increase in distracted walkers, especially during last year’s Pokemon Go craze.

“I know it wasn’t as big an issue here, there was some trespassing issues, but in other cities there was instances where pedestrians were struck or had near-misses with vehicles because they were distracted,” Kyle said.

One of the key areas they are looking at addressing is tracks near schools. Kyle said there has been an increase in the numbers of schools and young people in the city recently.

CN constable Dustin Schollenberg said there are more distractions for people than ever.

“With cellphones, we have noise-cancelling headphones, kids these days aren’t always paying attention,” Schollenberg said. “Not only kids, adults as well, we get a number of calls and concerns of people not paying attention coming up to the tracks.”

In Regina last year, there were 23 incidents involving trains. None were fatal.

The nine locations that will receive the stencils are:

• Trail crossing at CN line, east of Dorothy Street
• CN line at Dorothy Street
• CN line at McCarthy Boulevard
• Elphinstone Street, south of McKinley Avenue
• CP crossing at Elphinstone Street, south of McKinley Avenue
• Albert Street, south of First Avenue North
• Albert Street, north of Third Avenue
• Broad Street, south of First Avenue North
• Second Avenue North, west of Winnipeg Street