For someone that pretends to be a raccoon on the internet, Stephen MacKay has done an awful lot for the people of Halifax.
Dubbed by the Coast as “The raccoon that helped save Robie street”, his most notable campaign was the guerilla traffic calming and relentless activism that finally forced the municipality to install safety measures on his street.
After years of documenting more than 20 violent car crashes on the short stretch of Robie between Livingston and Cabot – one of which resulted in a death – he took matters into his own hands. He engaged his neighbors, asking for their green bins – in typical raccoon style – and created a sort of barrier that forced drivers to slow down.
The bin protest was short lived, but it opened the door to a conversation about what is possible, and it got attention. Leveraging that attention, he lobbied the municipality and started a petition within the neighborhood to install four-way stops along the dangerous stretch of road.
In the end, his efforts were successful, and two four-way stop have been installed. Since the installation of the stop signs and additional traffic calming measures put in place by HRM there has been one single crash.
The raccoon that helped save Robie Street | City | Halifax, Nova Scotia | THE COAST
https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/morning-file/natural-born-quillers
https://globalnews.ca/news/9132689/halifax-speed-cushions-traffic-calming-robie-street