Knee-jerk solution to tragedy does nothing to protect kids
I went out to Canongate Trail in the far north of Scarborough, near Pacific Mall at Kennedy and Steeles, early Monday morning expecting to feel righteously angry. I just wound up feeling terribly sad. Sad about what happened there on Canongate recently, sad about what was happening in front of me while I was there, sad about what it means about how things happen in this city.
On the grassy boulevard on the east side of the residential street, near the T-intersection with Ockwell Manor Dr., lie perhaps a dozen bouquets of flowers wilting in the early-morning frost. Among them are cards and letters and other items — gifts, snacks, a can of pop — offered as tributes.
A cardboard sign reads “RIP Duncan.”
This is where 11-year-old Duncan Xu died.
On Feb. 27, the boy left school for the afternoon at 3:30 p.m., reportedly laughing as he walked out of the building. He exited the schoolyard by taking a fenced pedestrian pathway between neighbouring houses that leads to Canongate. Then he attempted to cross the road, where he was struck by a car, and died.
Almost a week later, on Monday, at almost precisely the moment of sunrise, the official reaction to his death was proceeding. Local city councillor Jim Karygiannis was there, with two city workers dressed in navy blue and fluorescent yellow. As a few television cameras and reporters looked on, they used orange construction fencing to close off the entrances to the pathway. Signs on white copy paper attached to the fencing read “Temporarily closed!” in English and Chinese.
As the crew worked, a young woman wearing a backpack approached, her breath visible in the cold. Told the path was being closed, she looked up briefly and sighed, and walked back out to the sidewalk.
The pathway has been a major walking route for local residents both to the school itself and to Sanwood Park, both located in the centre of the block. The route to the alternative entrance on Purcell Square takes about five minutes by foot for an adult walking at a brisk pace.
The question is, why close the pathway? A child was killed walking home from school, so the response appears to be to make walking to and from school more difficult. Karygiannis told the TV cameras that Duncan had run through the path and right out onto the road. Now, children will not be able to do that. They will need to use one of the other pedestrian walkways off the park that also exit mid-block. I am skeptical of the proposition that forcing them to do so will mean fewer are likely to cross dangerously.
The speed limit is 40 km/h through this well-marked school zone. What about lowering the limit to 30 km/h, which research shows is likely to make any collisions with pedestrians many times less likely? Drivers appear to roll through a nearby four-way stop at Purcell and exceed the speed limit as they accelerate on Canongate. What about adding a three-way stop with a marked crossing at Ockwell Manor? What about putting in speed bumps to force people to observe limits? What about narrowing the street, or putting obstacles to calm traffic?
Karygiannis explained that he is in favour of some or all of these measures. But he also explained that they take a lot of time, and there’s a need to jump through bureaucratic hoops. At the next works committee meeting in early April, he said, he’d be “walking on” a motion to introduce speed bumps on the street, and possibly a three-way stop. But the process would take months or more than a year, and require the overwhelming support of local residents.
In the meantime, he said, something needed to be done. The school community, local parents, local “ratepayers” demanded it, he said.
So, something was being done.
Something, certainly, that would make walking in this already pedestrian-unfriendly neighbourhood more difficult. Something, likely, that could thereby contribute to encouraging more people to drive instead, making the streets even less safe for pedestrians.
If the problem was children running right from the pathway onto the road, one of the reporters asked Karygiannis, had he considered a maze-gate at the path’s entrance that would slow people down without forbidding access.
According to Karygiannis, the problem is that parks workers need to clear the pathway — of snow and litter, one presumes — and gates would make it hard to get their vehicles into the pathway.
Something about that last point drove the lesson home: the easy movement of motor vehicles trumped measures that might make pedestrians safer, not just on the road but on the pedestrian walkway itself.
Doing something that might save the lives of children walking home from school takes months, requires broad consultation and needs city council approval.
Doing something that just prevents them from walking can be put in place almost instantly.
As I said I expected to be angry. Maybe I should be. But as the sun came up on the roadside tribute to Duncan Xu, and the reaction of the city became clear in the morning light, it was sadness that sunk in. For an 11-year-old boy who lost his life, and a city that couldn’t — or wouldn’t — find a way to protect him.