Being pedestrian in Winnipeg not for faint of heart

We hear a lot these days about something called “mode shift,” primarily in relation to how people get around in our city. The objective, according to no fewer than four city reports, is to get people out of their cars and onto buses, bikes or their own two feet.

But as things currently stand, being a pedestrian in Winnipeg is not for the faint of heart. Indeed, crossing the road in this city can feel a lot like taking your life into your hands.

Between Sept. 11 and Nov. 2 — a mere seven weeks — 12 pedestrian collisions occurred involving one or more people. This when the national average is 25 pedestrian collisions per month.

We came close to claiming half of them.

Of the total pedestrians injured, most were seniors, struck while trying to cross the street. Others, like the school patrol at Sargent Avenue and Dominion Street and three kids on Pembina Highway, were actually struck while standing on the sidewalk.

Two victims, an 80-year-man and a 19-year old-woman, were killed, while the others suffered serious or critical injuries.

So what exactly is going on here? Is no one safe to cross a street? Have drivers suddenly lost their minds?

Or have we become so car-centric, so addicted to rushing and speed, so impatient with every aspect of life that we’ve forgotten there may be other humans beings around who lack the protection of a 1,700-kilogram projectile with a steering wheel?

It’s sometimes tough to figure out what that $370-million police budget is actually spent on. Because while speed cameras make money for the city, they don’t guarantee that the driver doing 70 in a 50 km/h zone actually slows down. Nor are cameras able to charge motorists with reckless driving.

It takes officers in a cruiser car to do that and you don’t see many of those around.

Then you have the insanely short duration of too many crosswalk lights. Even those of us without mobility issues may find our hearts pounding when we’re in the middle of a six-lane road and the green “walk-now” sign suddenly and precipitously turns red. Then the beeping countdown starts up as if to warn you that you have 10 seconds until impact.

Indeed, there are several roads — more like inner-city highways — that I would never dare to cross on foot, including Henderson Highway, Pembina Highway and Kenaston Boulevard, as well as some stretches on Portage Avenue and Main Street.

And that doesn’t even begin to take into account the high speeds clocked on roads that run between or around malls and big-box stores like Ness Avenue, which does double duty as a feeder road for surrounding residential streets.

If I lived on Ness, that road would be off-limits to my kids.

And speaking of kids, let’s look at the way the 30 km/h school zones in this city are structured. They’re so short, it’s a wonder more kids aren’t run over.

One of them, near St. Ignatius School on Harrow Street, actually ends two or three car lengths after you cross the light at Corydon Avenue, as if school kids suddenly disappear into the ether once they’ve crossed the intersection.

Worse still, you get incredibly puzzling statements from city councillors, such as Jeff Browaty, suggesting that school zones shouldn’t be in force until the precise date when kids are back at school, because it’s annoying for drivers to have to slow down a few days before it’s necessary.

Is Browaty going to switch out 171 school zone signs every year, just to change the Sept. 1 start date?

In fact, from where I sit, the only thing that needs changing are the attitudes of too many councillors toward any mode of transportation save the car.

Other cities that have experienced spikes in pedestrian collisions have taken action by adopting something called the Vision Zero Framework.

It’s a safety system that deploys everything from speed reductions and extending pedestrian crosswalk times to traffic-calming devices like bump-out curbs to reduce accidents in high-risk areas.

We’ve seen some of that, but it doesn’t seem to be consistently applied based on an analysis of traffic accident data. More often than not, it only seems to happen in response to citizen complaints about speeding.

So instead of widening already-dangerous roads, maybe it’s time city council took street safety seriously. Because Winnipeggers deserve to feel safe on all city streets.

Erna Buffie is a writer and environmentalist. Read more at ernabuffie.com