June. Near Victoria. RCMP report: “Pedestrians injured in collision.” Early July. Vancouver. Police report: “Cyclist injured in serious collision.” Later July. Toronto. Police report: “Fatal Collison #24/2024.”
The police headlines seem to hint at some random happenstance but even in the immediate aftermath of the crashes, the facts were clear. In the Victoria suburbs, a driver hit two people in a crosswalk and put them in hospital. In Vancouver, a driver struck a cyclist, sending the person to hospital with serious injuries. In Toronto, a driver killed a woman. She was in a crosswalk and died in hospital. She was also pregnant. After a premature birth, the baby died the next day.
In recent years, cities across Canada to varying degrees have worked to reduce pedestrian and cyclist deaths. It is what’s known as Vision Zero, an idea that emerged in Scandinavia in the late 1990s. It asserts no one should die on city streets, starting with the most vulnerable, people out for a walk or riding a bike.
For too long, society accepted that death was a fact of life on the roads. It was the cost of convenience to move from A to B as fast as possible in a car. We call crashes “accidents,” even when the causes, from driver speed to road design, are deliberate choices. It’s a cultural problem that such incidents are viewed as ordinary. That’s reflected in vague police headlines. Instead of “pedestrians injured in collision,” the police headline should be, based on the facts the police already had in hand: “driver hits pedestrians in crosswalk.” Those are facts. Another one: crashes, and deaths, are often largely preventable.
Cities must redouble their efforts to make change happen.
The primary problem is drivers driving too fast, typically on roads built in such a way to encourage speed. Cities across the country have taken the initial steps to reduce some speed limits. Automated enforcement is an important tool. Research shows it slows drivers down. Edmonton is a leader.
A hefty ticket is only a part of the answer. Redesigning roads, such as narrowing lanes, widening sidewalks and adding bike lanes, bolsters safety for all road users. At intersections, so many of them dangerous, tools such as raised crosswalks and pedestrian priority work. Ending rights on red is another move. And stripping out so-called slip lanes, which enable cars to speedily turn on highway-like curves rather than at an intersection’s right angle, is essential.
A plea for more beauty in urban life
Despite all the evidence of what changes work, there’s not been enough change, as indicated by federal data. The numbers over the past decade show no improvement at all. In five years from 2018 through 2022 (the latest national figures), drivers killed an average of 307 pedestrians a year and 46 people on bikes. That includes the pandemic lull. It should ring alarm bells that the number of deaths is unchanged from the previous five-year period.
In Toronto, some numbers are more promising. There were 29 pedestrian deaths in 2023, lower than the annual toll before the pandemic. Yet serious injuries surged last year. This year 12 people on foot have been killed. But five cyclists have already been killed by drivers, the most on record going back to 2014.
If more is done, fewer people will die. In 2019, after years of work, Helsinki and Oslo both recorded zero pedestrian deaths. In New York City, which embraced Vision Zero a decade ago, pedestrian deaths in 2023 were the lowest on record (excluding the 2020 pandemic year), more than halved from the 1990s. In Los Angeles, two-thirds of voters this year endorsed increased spending to make the city’s streets safer.
Back in Toronto, the work of change is too slow. A decade ago, city data showed two especially dangerous intersections were on Deauville Lane in a densely populated suburban neighbourhood. Both intersections have slip lanes to speed drivers. Now, at long last, one intersection will be fixed this year; the other won’t happen until next year.
Other cities still believe drivers are more important than all other road users. In Winnipeg, where many streets were engineered to function as highways, the city this year rejected calls to remove a slip lane at one of Winnipeg’s most dangerous intersections in the densely populated Osborne Village area. The city said that the proposed improvements would slow down cars.
Cars are driving too fast, and policy is moving too slow. Make change happen. The methods are proven to work. It will save lives.