The silent stalker overtaking our sidewalks

Under the McPhillips railway bridge lives an overload of a sensory experience — and not in a nice way.

Once in a while, the city sidewalk sweepers make their way through the narrow, dark passageway, clearing away the sometimes inch-deep pigeon droppings along the edges. But most of the time, it’s the worst part of my walk.

There’s the guano — slick as grease when the sidewalk’s filled wall to wall with standing puddles — plus dead pigeons, broken pigeon eggs, discarded needles. Regularly, small handfuls of discarded, opened, probably stolen mail, as well as torn-open delivery packaging. The smell is overpowering, and it all seems like ground zero in an avian-flu-breeding sci-fi movie.

It’s also a pinch-point on McPhillips: the roadway has narrowed to two lanes to fit under the old bridge, and the sidewalks are narrow as well, tucked between a concrete wall on one side and steel girders that can only be described as encrusted on the other.

But, even with all the other hazards, the narrowness is the worst. Bicyclists don’t like to use that stretch of road, and I don’t blame them for wanting to ride on the safety of the sidewalk, even if it’s breaking the rules. But now, the narrow sidewalk is hosting heavy, faster e-scooters and e-bikes as well. And they are extremely quiet.

I understand why the scooter and e-bike riders don’t want to use the roadway either.

Normally, the goal on any roadway is to keep higher-speed traffic away from the side of the route that has the pedestrians — but the near-constant use of the inside bus, taxi and bike lanes on roads like McPhillips by frustrated drivers who see them as high-speed passing lanes makes things more dangerous for everyone.

They are also a good example of how unenforced rules make for unexpected problems. Drivers aren’t supposed to use the transit lanes as passing lanes — but they do, because the rules are rarely enforced.

So now, paradoxically, the fastest traffic on McPhillips is often right next to the sidewalk.

E-scooter users are going to have to make the same decision too, when the province eventually proclaims legislation for them. Right now, the not-yet-in-place rules limit e-scooters to particular top speeds, and limits the roads they can use to those with a 50 km/h speed limit. That means e-scooters won’t be allowed on the road — or the sidewalk — on McPhillips.

I bet that then, like now, they’ll choose the sidewalk. Especially if there is little or no enforcement of the rules.

I used to joke that I’d probably die in a McPhillips slip lane, run over by a car with a driver looking left for other traffic while turning right. Odds are pretty high on it being by an e-bike or e-scooter now.

I always look to see if there’s a bike coming in either direction as I get ready to head under the bridge — if there is, I wait. Because there isn’t room for us both to pass, side by side. But the e-bikes and the e-scooters are faster — and they come up near-silent and quick behind me as I meander along, the small sound they do make swallowed up by the traffic noise.

I’m getting used to being startled by their sudden appearance next to me. Startled, and frightened.

Last Monday, coming out from under the bridge on the Logan side, a fast-moving scooter came close enough from behind me to tug at my sleeve as it passed. There wasn’t much room, and, distracted by the world as I often am, I may not have been keeping to an absolutely straight line. So, I don’t think of myself as blameless.

Still, I was very close to getting hit from behind by a high-speed collection of vehicle and rider that outweighed me by a good amount.

It is a familiar story, that thing that happens when something heavy, moving fast, hits something lighter. It doesn’t turn out well for the lighter thing — as was evidenced recently when a Winnipeg Blue Bombers volunteer was struck by an e-scooter on a sidewalk outside Princess Auto Stadium. His injuries, to be blunt, are life-changing: five compressed vertebrae, titanium rods in his spine, emergency neck surgery.

As e-scooter sales and use grows, so, too, do the ballooning accident statistics. Riders are getting injured, passengers are getting injured, pedestrians are getting injured. And some are getting killed. Regulations may have a role in trying to slow the damage — but not unless it comes hand-in-hand with enforcement.

And just an aside: on the same day an e-scooter plucked my sleeve on McPhillips, I had an equally disturbing experience on Banning Street, where a helmetless boy who looked to be around nine years old was racing a full-sized e-scooter up and down the middle of the street between Ellice and St. Matthews avenues. He was screaming with joy — there was no one in sight, only him and me.

I was terrified, not for me, but for him.

All I wanted to be is off that block before the inevitable — maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon — occurred. Because the inevitable, darned it, just keeps occurring, whether you see it coming or not.

Russell Wangersky is the Comment Editor at the Free Press. He can be reached at russell.wangersky@freepress.mb.ca