Last week the City of Toronto went through a day where 22 reported crashes between vehicles and pedestrians were reported. The Toronto Star has written an editorial on what it called “a quiet epidemic of violence against pedestrians” noting “it’s time for political leaders to take it much more seriously”.
How bad is it? By December 1st 42 people were killed on Toronto streets. Even though senior citizens are only 14 per cent of the Toronto population, they make up 60 per cent of the fatalities. And there are hundreds of pedestrians that are being seriously injured in crashes-in Toronto, the average is that one pedestrian is hit every four hours.
Now that sounds like something quite serious. Toronto responded by a public campaign about the crashes, which basically informed citizens to wear bright colours and be careful. Prominent politicians, planners and others extolled the idea of “Vision Zero”, which in Toronto’s case was “Vision 20 Per Cent”-having a reduction of fatalities and accidents of 20 per cent in ten years, which still meant that 400 pedestrians were expendable as well as another 3,000 subject to serious injury to meet the target. Somehow the right of cars to travel quickly and efficiently outweighs the right of pedestrians and cyclists to safe use of the Toronto streets.
The Mayor of Toronto supported the city’s first-ever road safety program with a plan to lower speed limits from 50 km/h to 40 km/h on twenty “high risk” streets. (Hardly a reduction, when you contemplate that a 30 km/h speed can result in a 90 per cent survival rate for a pedestrian in a crash. Why not go for 30 km/h?). But Toronto Star reporter Ben Spurr and William Davis examined the pedestrian fatalities and found that “just six of the 42 pedestrians killed between Jan. 1 and Dec. 1 of this year were struck on streets where the speed limit will be reduced as part of the city’s safety plan. Six more were in areas scheduled for “safety audits.” But the great majority happened in other parts of the city”.
The Toronto Star also published a heartbreaking list of some of the people who died on Toronto Streets-who they were, what they were doing when they died.
Reducing speeds is only one facet of the work that needs to be done to create a safer walkable city. Driver behaviour, road design, and enhancing visibility is also key. The Premier of Ontario has enabled legislation for municipalities to lower speed limits in their communities. Hopefully that will be the first step in changing Toronto’s dynamic that it is just not vehicles that have a right to the road.
https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/yourtoronto/the_fixer/2015/08/31/pedestrian-crossing-button-gets-the-stable-home-it-needs-the-fixer/crossing-button.jpg.size.custom.crop.1086×724.jpg
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Reblogged this on Sandy James Planner.
Looks like not much interest here either.
Struggling with how to solve this problem is similar to an article I read on gun violence in the US. A university academic who studied this admitted that he could not understand why there was a much higher level of gun violence in the US than in Canada. If one lives in Canada it is quite easy to understand. Gun culture tied with more guns means more gun violence. Motoring culture tied with most people driving cars means it is difficult to see a solution. After all, it is the vulnerable road users who are to blame for their own injuries and deaths.
At the recent BC Road Safety conference, there were a few presenters calling for default 30 km/hr speed limits. Also, Minister Morris (Solicitor General) called for speed enforcement systems to be added to red light cameras. An interesting statistic is that at the existing 140 speed camera locations, about 500,000 vehicles were clocked at going more than 40 km/hr over the limit through the intersection. None of these received a ticket.
Let the road violence continue…
More and more I’m thinking that we need to take big step backwards and look at the processes that go into designing our cities.
If the starting point is always to build streets between buildings, then squeeze in pedestrian and bike infrastructure as an afterthought it seems inevitable that we’ll create cities that aren’t safe for anyone but drivers.
I would love to see examples of urban planning that started by designing pedestrian pathways and routes, then self-powered transportation like bicycles, then finally added laneways for cars at the end. Or that set up traffic signals and crosswalks based on moving pedestrians most efficiently and effortlessly, with autos accepting delays and roundabout routes.
On the highways I’m all in favour of maximum speed limits, with enforcement of basic safe driving, but inside cities and towns we should be designing for walking, not cars.
Vancouver has effectively done this with a policy that places pedestrians first. Of course there’s a tremendous amount of built infrastructure that predates this policy, but we’re starting to see the fruits of it through projects like the intersection reconfigurations at both ends of the Burrard Street Bridge. I have no doubt that the new intersections will be much safer for pedestrians, and for bikes too. And perhaps even (dare I say it?) cars.
It will be better for cars. Have a look at the design of the Burrard Bridge north end. They’re widening Pacific to allow more lanes. Drivers turning right get their own signal light phase. The primary reason given to even do it is because it was the second worst intersection for motor vehicle accidents in the city.
At the south end of the Burrard Bridge you’ll see that driving is much better than before. More predictable and civilized. Every mode and direction has a timing phase and a place to happen.
Good stuff.
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Editors note: Actually the City of Vancouver’s pedestrian death rate is twice that of Toronto’s pedestrian death rate per capita. We may have a policy that is supportive of walking first, but not in practice. Because of Toronto’s interest in stopping the Road Violence I have not included Vancouver’s disturbing fatalities in this article. More than one pedestrian a month is killed, often in intersections, mostly seniors.
Sandy, you’ve made an important point.
Pretty much every town and city proclaims a great love of pedestrians, and has reports and guidelines to prove it.
At the end of the day though, there never seems to be the time, money, or inclination to live up to the promises.
It is worth considering that sometimes when the City does have plans to address shortcomings they get opposition from the forces of “leave it alone, it is fine”. Consider 10th Ave in the health precinct. The proposed improvements have as much to do with people walking as people on bikes (curb bulges, crosswalks, loading/unloading zones, reduced traffic volumes, turning restrictions on vehicles) but the counterpoint of wanting to retain street parking threatens this plan. Look also at the current Burrard Bridge improvements. There were already two bike lanes across the bridge; the changes being implemented are to return one of the sidewalks to pedestrians, who deserve it, and put a protected bike lane in one of the three northbound vehicles lanes. Not a big difference for people on bikes, but a huge one for pedestrians. Finally, consider Point Grey Road. The bike infrastructure was done in Phase I. Phase II is all about pedestrian improvements. Lobbying was done by local residents to try and stop it. All of these projects were popularly termed “bike lane projects” by the press, yet all were primarily to benefit people walking. The City just has to overcome people pushing more car use and not wanting changes in their neighbourhoods.
And Commercial Drive – proposal is for a complete street which will vastly improve safety for everyone and biggest opposition is to improvements for cycling. And Kits Beach Park proposal to improve safety for everyone by twinning a shared walk/cycle path has huge opposition because of the focus on the cycling portion of the project. Paving a temporary path on Arbutus Greenway has huge opposition due to focus on cycling while paved path would provide improved accessibility for for everyone. Change is difficult, but we need to do things better in order to reduce the carnage on our roads.
So true. The press knows what will sell ads and what won’t. An article or news story emphasizing the walking nature of a project will not be noticed much so fewer clicks and less money they can ask from advertisers. Highlighting something that’s controversial will. (I still have no idea how cycling became controversial but there you go.)
The media frames a project as something that is for the benefit of only one group of people and implies therefore that it’s to the detriment of others.
I’m glad that there are enough people out there who are media savvy and don’t buy it and enough who look at the actual plan and not the altered version that the media presents.
Excellent comments. I’m arriving at the conclusion that we have to start from scratch. That is, to shut certain roads down completely, then reconfigure them to give more priority to pedestrians, bikes and transit. That could mean never to open some of them to cars ever again.