It’s time we started to prioritize pedestrians
We have bought the idea that cars are more deserving than other road users
Each year when Halloween week rolls around, I find myself thinking about the things that scare me. There’s lots to pick from, so I don’t have to think too hard. This year, I’ve landed on Hamilton streets.
The experience of trying to cross many of our roads spooks the devil out of me. The other day, I was at York at Dundurn. In a mad fury, the cars just kept on turning left onto Dundurn, on my light! “You are in a car,” I wanted to yell at the drivers, “you’re getting there faster than me, wherever it is you’re going.”
The car, because it is bigger and faster and can do great damage, gets to go first, even when the traffic lights say “stop.”
A recent Spec article reports that in 2016, police recorded 279 pedestrian collisions, including 257 with injuries and four fatalities. It goes on to report that this total is the highest since 293 collisions were recorded in 2007.
Standing there helplessly, it hit me how far we have yet to go in prioritizing pedestrians, invested as we are in car culture.
We have bought into the idea that cars, that is, people driving cars are more deserving of respect than any other road users. That’s why, when a driver stops to let humble pedestrians pass, we are grateful and even do a little hustle and a little jog so as not to hold them up for that extra second. Like what?
Thankfully, although Hamilton is no where near getting anything close to this, there is small comfort in knowing that in places around the world, new pedestrian crossing technology is emerging, including 3D crosswalk designs. In Iceland, India and China, these are being painted to look like they hover over the street, the intention being to slow down traffic and reduce driving speeds. In the UK, the Starling Crossing prototype will move and change to prioritize pedestrians and so is designed to reshape streets by responding in real time to pedestrian movements.
What is really hopeful is the paradigm shift that’s on the move and taking over the popular imagination. People will always need to get to places by driving, no arguing that, but there is a definite desire in the air for streets to serve more than this one function (that is, for getting to destinations) to include what streets used to be historically — actual destinations.
People are yearning for streets that are safe, but also vibrant. They want streets that offer intrigue and bustle and that are social spaces. Streets that support both walking and cycling typically revitalize and increasing density in urban cores.
Not only do they strengthen our neighbourhoods and our communities, they provide economic and environmental benefits too. People are after practical options to car driving (thank you city of Hamilton for the new bike lanes on Bay!) but they also want a different kind of experience and a more exciting use of travel space — could this be part of the great interest in our city’s alleyways as greenways?
Even from a planning perspective, Todd Litman (Victoria Transport Policy Institute) writes about how the old paradigm of thought evaluated transport system performance based primarily on the speed, convenience, and affordability of motor vehicle travel — and so favoured automobile-oriented improvements. But the new paradigm is more comprehensive and multimodal.
Litman documents how motor vehicle travel has started to peak in most developed countries “because of various demographic and economic trends, including aging populations, rising fuel prices, increasing urbanization, growing health and environmental concerns, and changing consumer preferences.” Growing numbers of people want to drive less in favour of walking, bicycling, and public transit, but these modes have to be enjoyable and convenient and connected.
Employees are asking for sustainable transportation options. In Edmonton, with its employees in mind, the company Stantec donated resources to the now established grid of protected bike lanes installed in the downtown. They were inspired by Calgary who built a 6.5km downtown grid of protected bike lanes, in 2015. Hugely successful, the network celebrated over 1,000,000 cycle trips across its three main embedded counters about a year after opening.
In Hamilton, initiatives like Friendly Streets Hamilton (a project of Environment Hamilton and Cycle Hamilton) are engaging community residents and stakeholders around making our streets less frightening for walking and cycling. It’s a pilot that is wrapping up but they are building a tool kit that neighbourhoods can use to help them with their traffic calming concerns, and you can find more information on their blog. The conversation is only going to get louder.