Frustrations grow over crosswalk flag impasse

A Nova Scotiaman is growing frustrated with a stalemate over his crosswalk flag project in Dartmouth.

The Halifax Regional Municipality won't make a decision until the province legalizes the process, but the province maintains it's strictly a municipal issue.

Norm Collins said he just wants to make it safer to cross the street.

"Quite honestly, we don't care where the authority lies or doesn't lie. We just want somebody to stop passing it back and forth, make a decision and let us put the flags back," he said Monday.

Collins put orange flagsat 13 spots alongWaverley Road in Dartmouth so pedestrians could carry them and be more visible to motorists. He considers it a cheap and easy way to prevent accidents.

The project was shelved after the municipality said provincial permission was required. The province, in turn, dismissed that claim.

'Simple, inexpensive, common sense'

"This is a program that to the vast, vast majority is simple, inexpensive, common sense, no-brainer and through some bureaucracy we're sitting here with no flags out on the roads," said Collins.

Liberal MLA Andrew Younger is proposing an amendment to the Motor Vehicle Act to give municipalities the right to install flags at crosswalks.

"It's got to stop," Younger said of the impasse. "The simplest way to stop it is to amend the Motor Vehicle Act and to say, 'All right, they're permitted.' "

Transportation Minister Bill Estabrooks is sticking to the government line that this is a municipal problem.

"There's nothing in provincial legislation disallowing these crosswalk flags so it's within the purview of the HRM so they should get out there and solve their problem," said Estabrooks.

Without the minister's blessing, Younger's bill won't move forward.