How politics is killing a safe route to school

‘Detour’ for pedestrian-bridge closing puts people at risk, says Michelle Perry

It’s a sad story that says a lot about what we value as a city.

The Harmer Avenue pedestrian and cyclist bridge over the Queensway needs to be rebuilt. This will take two years (no rapid bridge replacement here). The Harmer bridge is a safe route for kids walking and cycling to Fisher Park/Summit Alternative middle school, the Fisher Park Community Centre and a popular park.

The City of Ottawa consulted and came up with a sensible plan. During the two years of construction, there would be a safe detour that included temporary bike lanes on about 450 metres of nearby Holland Avenue.

Last March, the city presented this detour plan at an open house. According to the display boards, the consultation to come up with the detour plan included: two public-advisory-committee meetings, a technical advisory committee meeting, meetings with the principals of Fisher Park/Summit Alternative and Elmdale Public School, a kitchen-table meeting with some of the adjacent residents, and several meetings with the ward councillor.

At some point, some people decided that they didn’t like the detour plan. In May, a petition with 118 signatures opposing the detour was presented to City Council.

On June 4, some “Great news!!” was posted to the “Friends of Holland Avenue” Facebook page: a letter from Mayor Jim Watson informing one of the “friends” that the group’s lobbying had been successful.

According to the letter, Watson was also concerned about the detour, had “met with staff to seek a solution,” and was pleased about the resulting compromise: no loss of parking, no bike lanes, sharrows on Holland Avenue and sidewalk cycling. “This practice is done throughout the City and has proven to keep cyclist (sic) safe while still maintaining parking spaces along the road,” the letter said (About a week later, on June 12, Coun. Jeff Leiper wrote a blog post announcing the change and his preference and continued advocacy for a better detour.)

This would all be so much easier if painting a bicycle on the street actually kept cyclists safe. However, the research says otherwise. In the study “Bicyclists’ injuries and the cycling environment,” for example, researchers at the University of British Columbia found that cyclists using routes with sharrows had an increased risk of injury. Cyclists using routes with bike lanes on major streets with no parked cars — the original detour plan — were safer. Cramming cyclists and pedestrians onto the narrow west sidewalk is typical of the “share the crumbs” approach to vulnerable road users the city reverts to when subject to political pressure.

This is the opposite of Vision Zero, an ethical approach to traffic safety in which the transportation system is designed so that everyone can get to school, or work, or wherever without being at risk of death or serious injury. The city claims to support Vision Zero (we’re getting a Vision Zero plan after the election), but its actions say otherwise.

The problem is that, with other North American cities, we’ve accepted the idea that dangerous streets are a reasonable trade-off for more convenient parking for so long that we consider it normal. That’s how the blocking of a bike lane meant to keep people, including children, safe becomes a cause for celebration.

This won’t change until the political benefits of doing the right thing outweigh the political costs. It means a cultural shift, where we value human life and health more than a few parking spaces. Michelle Perry is an Ottawa writer.