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Traffic change angers Evans parents
New rules bar left-hand turns to and from the school Jessica Peters The Progress
Traffic at Evans elementary has gotten worse, not better, thanks to a change at the city level. That was one of several traffic complaints that greeted school trustees as they met for their first school board meeting Sept. 19. Where there was always just a single yellow line dividing traffic in front of the school on Evans Road, there is now a double lined reinforced with tall, yellow traffic bollards that prevent southbound traffic from turning left. The change also means vehicles can no longer turn left coming out of the school’s sole exit point. The change was made just a few weeks before school started, and came as a surprise to parents who drive their children to school. One of them was Jason Hughes, who took the opportunity to voice his concerns publicly to the school board last week. “They’ve taken a small problem and turned it into a big one,” he said. The change was intended to “keep traffic flowing” in the area, Hughes was told by the city employee he contacted. But all it’s done, he says, is move the problems further along Evans. And it’s creating a dangerous short-cut, he adds. His own son was walking near the Wells Supermarket on one of the first days of school. A car cut quickly through that store’s parking lot and almost hit the group of walkers before speeding back down Evans, north toward the school. “It’s becoming unsafe,” he says, “and I’m going to have to start driving my son and I will be adding to the problem.” But the problem could be alleviated eventually. The school district recently Continued on Page A4
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EDDIE JULIAN PHOTO
Despite suffering a broken femur and other serious injuries after a hit and run, Mary Stewart was discharged from hospital in the middle of the night in the pouring rain.
Racism blamed for premature hospital discharge Fraser Health apologizes after woman with broken femur spends night in a wheelchair in the rain
Paul Henderson The Progress
The ex-husband of a victim of a hit and run in downtown Chilliwack says the bad treatment she received at the hospital after the incident was at least partially racially motivated. Mary Stewart was crossing Williams Street at Bole Avenue shortly after 1 a.m. on Sept. 9 when she was struck by a vehicle described as a light-coloured
semi. The vehicle did not stop and the 55-year-old was left with a broken femur, other fractures, and a crushed foot. Stewart was rushed to hospital by ambulance where she was examined, received X-rays and then promptly discharged. That’s when her terrible night turned into a nightmare. “To me it is really crazy that could happen at all,” her ex-husband and father of her children
Eddie Julian told The Progress Monday. Julian said that despite Stewart’s serious injuries, and despite receiving an X-ray, she was kicked out of the hospital into the rain. He attributes the staff’s actions to the fact that she is aboriginal from the Skwah First Nation, and a recovering addict on the methadone program. “Mary was treated worse than the chickens that are being abused on the farms here,” Julian told APTN News last Friday, comparing it to the ongoing controversy involving
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accusations of animal abuse at a Chilliwack chicken farm. Julian wasn’t with Stewart that night, she was with her new partner Raymond. Julian said when a male nurse grabbed her leg and started to pull her off a stretcher into a wheelchair it was Raymond who stopped him and did his best to get her in the chair. The two were told to leave, but without a ride or a phone, they stayed in a covered area to wait out the pouring rain. “Because they didn’t leave Continued on Page A4