Town Council favors flying flags

Flags were the theme of the last Crescenta Valley Town Council executive committee meeting as Councilman Robert Thomas unveiled the first cloth version of the new official Crescenta Valley Community flag and Councilwoman Robbyn Battles presented an idea for pedestrian safety involving a potential purchase of small yellow flags to be carried by pedestrians as they use area crosswalks.

Battles “borrowed” the idea from a recent trip to Kirkland, Wash. A suburb of Seattle, which is one of many communities across the country, including Salt Lake City, Utah; St. Paul, Minn.; and Cambridge, Mass., currently using pedestrian crossing flags. The idea originated in a small town in Idaho, and is credited with saving lives by creating better visibility of pedestrians for motorists.

Kirkland implemented the fluorescent flags program at its crosswalks in 1995 after two fatal pedestrian accidents.

If approved by the council and implemented in the Crescenta Valley, funds would need to be generated — at about $200 per crosswalk — in order to provide buckets and about one-dozen flags at each crosswalk.

The idea is: A pedestrian picks up a flag out of a bucket on one side of the crosswalk, holds it out to create better visibility as they cross the street, and then replaces the flag in a bucket at the other side of the street.

Studies of the flag project in Kirkland showed that motorists were twice as likely to stop when a flag was visible as when one was not visible, Battles said.

Several possible problems were discussed at the executive committee meeting including the expectation that flags would be stolen and need to be replaced, and the fact that it would take community education in order for the program to be successful.

Battles will present the idea to the public again at next Thursday night’s Town Council meeting at 7 p.m. at the Crescenta Valley High School library.

Also to be presented at that meeting will be the new community flag, which received a flurry of approval when unfurled during the executive committee meeting.

“I want to commend Robert, he took this from concept to finish,” Council President Steve Pierce said of the flag, which came about after Thomas implemented a community-wide contest to create its design.

Thomas had seen an Eagle Rock community flag flying above the Glendale (2) Freeway, which caused him to feel the need for a Crescenta Valley community flag.

The contest generated about 25 flag possibilities. After a community vote last fall, the design of La Crescenta resident Steven Park and his 10-year-old son, Justin, received the nod from voters.

The council last month asked Thomas to order the first flag, which was delivered this past week. That flag will be displayed at all Town Council meetings, as well as at events such as the upcoming Arbor Day celebration.

When more sites become available to fly the flag, additional flags will be ordered, the council previously decided.

“I’m not done yet,” Thomas said, in response to Pierce’s comment, adding, “I’ve still got to find places to fly the flag.”