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Drive death from the streets to put an end to pedestrian insecurity

We still die too often just walking our streets. This is the dire fate that awaited an 11-year-old boy, crushed last week by a truck at the corner of Bernard and Parc avenues, in Mile End, a stone's throw from the family home. The month before, it was a young man of 18, newly settled in Montreal for his studies, who passed under the wheels of a bus, at the intersection of Saint-Denis and Rigaud streets.

At the end of August, in Amos, a 13-year-old boy was hit by a motorist on the first day of school, when he got off his school bus. Their dreams forever behind them, these three young people broke at the start of their lives remind us of our unfinished duties in matters of pedestrian safety in Quebec.

It is clear that the small, encouraging steps noted in the 2023 Road Report did not last long after a disastrous 2022 road report, the worst in the last fifteen years in terms of the number of pedestrian deaths. The school year was only two weeks old when Piétons Québec took to the keyboard, on September 10, to express outrage at the bad fate meted out to children traveling on foot. There were already five young people aged 3, 5, 6, 13 and 15 years old, who had paid the price of avoidable collisions, the height of it!

We learned the same week that the road toll had deteriorated considerably in the first six months of 2024 in Montreal. In addition to noting an increase in deaths and serious injuries, the Montreal Police Service said it had recorded twice as many arrests for dangerous driving than at the same date last year.

However, there is no shortage of safeguards on Quebec territory. Through its National Architecture and Land Use Planning Policy, its Sustainable Mobility Policy, its Road Safety Action Plan and its reforms to the Road Safety Code, Quebec has strengthened its approaches these recent years.

The latest, the adoption by the Legault government of the Vision of zero deaths and serious injuries which has worked wonders in Sweden, brings great hope. First adopted by Montreal, which was in some ways the precursor here, this innovative approach advocates a “safe system” for all users according to their degree of vulnerability, from the most fragile pedestrian to the truck driver.

A large part of putting it into action belongs to our leaders. They have the mammoth task of redeveloping our roads and regulations accordingly. There is no shortage of proven measures: traffic calming, diagonal pedestrian crossings, redesigned routes, secure surroundings, reinforced and increased public transport, reduced vehicle fleet, lowered speed limits; the range of possibilities is vast and scientifically proven. It remains to choose what best suits our realities.

The determination of our leaders to put these measures in place quickly needs to be proven. Starting with that of the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility which too often appears as an irreformable dunce with its roads and its structures which establish automobile fluidity as a paragon of excellence.

A recognized champion of sustainable mobility, Mayor Valérie Plante is undoubtedly the one who has pushed the opposite logic furthest in Quebec. Although she may have profoundly changed Montreal to bring it closer to Vision Zero, her efforts are thwarted by suburbanites who continue to use the island for simple transit and by a car fleet plagued by morbid obesity.

Not only is the share of the automobile fleet growing faster than the population itself, but its weight weighs more than ever, indicates a study by the chair of energy sector management at HEC Montréal. However, the more vehicles there are, the faster they go, the more imposing they are, the greater the vulnerability of road users.

Faced with such hostility, it may be tempting to adopt even armor by falling back exclusively on the car. On a collective basis, however, each setback of this kind contributes to increasing road insecurity. On the contrary, we must break this vicious circle, because it harms cohabitation, the real key to a healthy street.

Our leaders will not get there alone, even with an exemplary roadmap. If the street belongs to everyone, it is also up to all of us, users, to take responsibility. From heaviest to lightest.

To prevent us from falling back into the same sterile logic – yet another accident, yet another coroner's report that the ministry will be free to follow (or not) – the collective Not one more death proposes the creation of a Protector of the road user. Capable of receiving complaints and imposing immediate actions on the authorities, this is a watchdog that could make things change on the ground, until the principles of the Vision Zero approach are well established in the four corners of Quebec.

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