Making Streets Safer for Pedestrians and Cyclists

I fully subscribe to (and share) the motivations of Toronto's Medical Officer of Health Dr. James McKeown, whose report on how to reduce danger to pedestrians was presented to Toronto City Council yesterday.

 

I lost a sister to a 'pedestrian-motor vehicle' collision many years ago - actually, before I was even born. Still, I know first-hand the damage it can cause to families.

 

But I'm afraid Dr. McKeown's conclusions are based on some false premises, and on an incomplete understanding of how traffic works.

 

His suggestions smack of “we have to do something”, as opposed to “let's do something that might actually help.”

 

First, he wants to make Toronto more 'pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly', and uses the city of Vancouver as an example.

 

Well, there are more differences between Vancouver and Toronto than the fact that their NHL team played a grand total of five more games this year than ours did.

 

There's the vastly more temperate (albeit rainy) climate on the Left Coast. Not much point in borrowing policies from there if they can't be utilized here for up to one third of the year. You don't - you never will - see many bicycles at the bottom of the Avenue Road hill heading up to St. Clair in February.

 

Also, during former Toronto mayor David Miller's even more ill-advised attempt to ban right turns on red lights, it came to light that Vancouver has the worst pedestrian safety record of any major Canadian city.

 

Not a paragon to which we should aspire, I wouldn't think.

 

Dr. McKeown's most controversial (but far from only) recommendation is for a blanket reduction of the speed limit from 50 km/h to 40 on non-residential streets and 30 on residential streets.

 

This ignores several facts.

 

First, research shows that on all types of road - freeways, arterial roads, urban streets - traffic drives roughly at the speed the road was designed to handle.

 

Give drivers a big wide four-lane road with excellent sight lines, no bumps or intersections, and they're gonna go about 60 - 70 km/h, no matter what you do.

 

I was once asked by a local politician how the municipality could slow down traffic on a major Regional Road near where we both live, which had just been rebuilt and modernized.

 

“Dig a one foot wide, one foot deep ditch across it every hundred metres or so,'' I replied.

 

“We can't do that!” she said.

 

“Then you don't really want to slow traffic down,” I countered, “because that's the only way you're going to do it.”

 

The police have nowhere near the resources needed to enforce the (mostly artificially low) speed limits we already have. What chance would they have of knocking 10 or 20 km off those speeds?

 

Approximately none.

 

Dr. McKeown notes that there are approximately 1,000 cyclists and 2,000 pedestrians involved in collisions with motor vehicles annually in Toronto; about 30 of these incidents result in fatalities.

 

How many of those could we expect to eliminate if we implemented his proposals?

 

Hard to say.

 

Data from elsewhere suggest that impaired walking is as proportionally dangerous as impaired driving. If that is the case in Toronto, then some 20 to 30 percent of those fatalities aren't caused by motor vehicles going too fast per se, but by the fact that the pedestrians are impaired.

 

I don't know if impaired cycling is an issue or not.

 

Dr. McKeown maintains that a pedestrian is eight times more likely to die if hit by a car going 50 km/h than 30 km/h.

 

That seems a bit high to me, given that 30 km/h is a pretty big hit.

 

But the real point is, the operator of the motor vehicle in such a collision has approximately zero chance of being killed.

 

Want pedestrians and cyclists to be safer?

 

The obvious answer: Get them into cars.

 

The sole reason I'm not totally bummed out that my second daughter has moved to Whitehorse in The Yukon is that she will no longer be riding her bicycle in downtown Toronto traffic.

 

So, what might help make our streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists?

 

Among the most interesting traffic safety initiatives in recent years - maybe ever - has taken place in a few cities and towns in Holland, subsequently extended to other cities in Europe. A traffic engineer named Hans Monderman removed ALL traffic restrictions - no speed limits, no lane markings, no stop lights, no crosswalks, no sidewalks, no signs, no nothing.

 

The theory was if nobody (or no signage, whatever) TELLS people what is or is not safe, the responsibility devolves onto all road users, and they figure it out for themselves.

 

Pedestrian/cyclist-vehicle interactions have dropped significantly in all cases, and traffic throughput actually increased as well.

 

Win win.

 

Can I see this happening here?

 

Not really. We're not brave enough to try anything this intelligent.

 

But it does indicate - to me, if not to Dr. McKeown - that in the world of traffic safety, all is not as it often appears to be.

 

Comments

[John B]

"Want pedestrians and cyclists to be safer?

The obvious answer: Get them into cars."

Now that's the dumbest thing I've heard you ever say! However, in a weird way, it would be true. With the increase in vehicles, there would be gridlock. Nobody would get run over. But how many would get killed by road rage?

[Larry]

'You don't - you never will - see many bicycles at the bottom of the Avenue Road hill heading up to St. Clair in February'

Were you out of town for all of February? Cycling rates continue to rise. Yes, winter is the least popular season for biking and most cyclists don't enjoy going uphill, but cherry-picking a scenario like that is disingenuous.

If you really wanted pedestrians and cyclists to be safer and not have to deal with an increase in car traffic (now, slower and with more less-experienced drivers!) you would be advocating for transit.

Given the margin by which drivers on non-residential streets routinely exceed the posted limit, lowering that limit would have the effect of making them drive at approximately the previous posted limit.

Speeds definitely need to be reduced on most residential streets, in part because drivers are cutting through neighbourhoods at speeds of 50 or more just to get to the next 60 km/h road slightly faster.

[Mark]

I hope whatever panel heard Dr. McK's thoughts also gets to hear critiques like this one.

Interesting to hear about the Dutch traffic experiment. I get the sense that it might not mesh quite as well with the temperament of our culture here, but whether that's true or not, I'm always in favour of testing the conventional wisdom, in this case the idea that safety is positively correlated with the amount of rules and restrictions. My worry on the Holland-type system would be less about safety and more about effectiveness; although you mention throughput was higher, I can see how it might foster a selfish system, where there would be no requirement to say, let people in to the flow of traffic at any point, and someone might be left waiting to turn onto a street for a ridiculously long time.

Sure, going down a major street where all kinds of traffic lights need to change just to let a couple of cars at a time turn off side streets, throughput would be higher if those lights didn't exist... but those few cars would be stuck with very few chances to escape the side streets. That's based on the expectation that the majority of drivers would drive selfishly though, which perhaps is too cynical.

[Anthony van Osch]

About the Dutch experiment: the Netherlands, as with the rest of the European Union, has far stricter vehicle third-party safety regulations, that is, how safe a vehicle is vis-a-vis pedestrians, cyclists, other vehicles, than does Canada. By comparison, ours are practically non-existent, especially for large trucks. Canada should adopt the same third-party safety standards for vehicles as the EU, but this would be fought tooth and nail by the trucking industry and possibly those who for some reason feel the need to drive lifted 4x4s and other vehicles with dangerous modifications. Canadian vehicle safety standards are shamefully out-of-date and by their nature are not capable of being brought into the modern world. They should be jettisoned in favour of better, international ECE standards that take third-party safety seriously.

[RX7heaven]

Out here on the left coast our Canucks had 31 more points this season than the Leafs and this used to be a rain forest (we still have the rain) when pedestrians are hard to see. My dad the engineer said that Force = Mass x Acceleration. The impact on a pedestrian should be equal to the weight of the vehicle times its speed. The force of the impact should be half as much at half the speed but bad fast driving is what really kills. My old dad also had a ring he said was made of metal from the failed second narrows bridge as a safety reminder. We have fences on the #7 highway to keep suicidal pedestrians from J walking and walk lights with count downs to the red light. Please walk safely no matter where you are.