- AT-Network - University of Manitoba Mailing Lists

WFP: City urged to boost street safety (Jan2'23)
by Beth McKechnie 02 Jan '23

02 Jan '23

Take steps to protect pedestrians, all road users: advocates *City urged to boost street safety* https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2023/01/02/city-urged-to-boo… THE high number of pedestrians killed by vehicles in Winnipeg last year highlights the need for a greater commitment to safe streets, including better sidewalk and bike lane snow clearing, advocates say. Twelve pedestrians had been killed on city streets in 2022, compared to six in 2021, according to data from Winnipeg Police Service and Manitoba Public Insurance. The number of people who had been injured was not available, an MPI spokesperson said. Ian Walker, chairman of Safe Speeds Winnipeg, said while deaths are the worst outcome, injuries caused to pedestrians struck by vehicles can have life-altering consequences. “We don’t hear about (injuries)… they happen so frequently that a lot of people accept it as a cost of modern transportation,” Walker said. He recalls helping his then-80-year-old neighbour after she was struck by a vehicle while crossing the intersection at Tache Avenue and Marion Street. “It forever changed her life,” Walker said. “She broke her hip and she went from being this vibrant 80-year-old to someone who was housebound… She just never regained her mobility, which was terrible. It took away from her quality of life.” Walker added there are many steps the City of Winnipeg could take to bolster safety for pedestrians and cyclists. On his 2023 wish list, he’d like to see the city commit to the Vision Zero safer streets strategy that’s popular in Europe. The goal is to eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries. It involves redesigning roads to ensure driver’s mistakes do not cost lives or injuries, ensuring speed limits are at safe levels, and collecting and analyzing data to understand how different populations are disproportionately affected. Walker emphasized smaller steps can be taken immediately to improve safety, such as putting a priority on sidewalk and bike lane clearing. When that doesn’t happen, pedestrians are pushed onto roads that are not designed for them, he said. Walker referenced a recent Free Press column that detailed the plight of a man in a wheelchair forced to use the street because the sidewalk was covered in snow. “Those kinds of images are just heartbreaking,” Walker said. Winnipeg public works spokeswoman Julie Dooley said in an email pedestrian safety “is absolutely a priority” for the municipal government. She pointed to the council-approved road safety action plan “designed to set the direction and pace of Winnipeg’s road safety investments over the next five years and identifies actions that will help the city meet its road safety goal of achieving a 20 per cent reduction in fatal and serious injury collisions by 2026.” Dooley said the plan is based on the Vision Zero concept, which recognizes road safety is a shared responsibility and improvement requires a team effort by road designers, vehicle manufacturers, policy makers, enforcement agencies, families, workplaces and schools. Christian Sweryda, a Winnipeg researcher who independently analyzes city traffic data, says there’s a lack of data about traffic incidents in general. He’s critical of knee-jerk responses from safer streets advocates following a crash. For example, the call to lower the speed limit. Sweryda said while such steps can minimize the severity of a collision, other factors could prevent crashes altogether. He listed better designed roadways, improved eye-level lighting at crosswalks, speed limits appropriate for the area, longer yellow lights, and enforcement that targets dangerous drivers. Decisions should be backed up by data and evidence, he said. He questions if the pedestrian-cyclist-driver divisions prevent the public from seeing practical solutions. “The bigger problem we see is that interests of road users are not united,” Sweryda said. “It’s become an ideological bottomless pit really. “It is convenient to blame the driver because then you can defer responsibility away from actually making changes to the engineering.” His hope is evidence and data drive changes that boost safety, and all those who hold the relevant data — police, the city, and MPI among them — freely share what they know about how to improve safety for all road users. katrina.clarke(a)freepress.mb.ca

1 0

WFP: Dad’s plea caps deadly year on city streets (Dec30'22)
by Beth McKechnie 30 Dec '22

30 Dec '22

Father appeals for help to solve son’s hit-and-run death *Dad’s plea caps deadly year on city streets* https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2022/12/29/plea-for-informat… EVERY time Kevin Joss learns about another fatal collision in Winnipeg, the immense pain of losing his son in a still-unsolved hit-andrun comes back to the surface. The number of fatalities on city streets has tripled, with 28 people dying in collisions this year, compared with nine in both 2021 and 2020. Police figures show collisions killed 16 people in 2019 and 13 in 2018. “This year, the amount of vehicle and pedestrian accidents or hit-and-runs has just gone through the roof,” Joss said Thursday. “Every time someone else loses their life or is critically injured or leaves the scene, it sends such a ripple effect through to this family and to others that are going through the same things that we have.” Winnipeg Police Service central traffic division Const. Aaron Staples, the lead investigator in the 2014 collision that killed 21-year-old Cody Joss, said there is no specific trend behind the spike in fatalities this year. Still, a number of incidents involved dangerous behaviour such as impaired or distracted driving or speeding. “(This year) was, unfortunately, a terrible year for road fatalities in Winnipeg, and we’re looking to improve those statistics,” Staples said during a news conference at police headquarters. There were 41 collisions involving death or serious injury in Winnipeg, as of Dec. 16, said police. Of those, 19 involved pedestrians, with 12 of them dying. There have been eight hit-and-runs. In five collisions, the driver was impaired or suspected of being impaired, said police. Standing next to a framed photo of his smiling son on Thursday, tears welled in Joss’s eyes while he renewed his family’s appeal for information to help solve Cody’s death. “If you are the bearer of any clues or any knowledge of this accident, I want you to take a look at your loved ones and realize it can happen to you,” said Joss. “Everybody says it wouldn’t happen to me. I stand before you and tell you it happened to us. “If you are holding that info, whether you thought that it was minor, it can all lead to a resolution for this case, some knowledge for our family and for us to begin to heal. Please, folks, I beg of you.” Cody was walking north on McGregor Street when he was hit by a vehicle travelling west on Inkster Boulevard around 6:45 p.m. on Dec. 19, 2014. The vehicle fled before police arrived. Cody was taken to Health Sciences Centre, where he later died. All investigative avenues have been exhausted, but his family and police hope someone has information about the vehicle and its occupant or occupants that could help investigators and bring closure to his loved ones. Joss and Staples appealed to people who have a link to the person or people who were in the vehicle, and may know something. “Maybe your status, your social status changed, whereas you weren’t able to talk about what transpired and now you can,” said Joss. “It’s not too late. Any little bit of information that you have can really help us out. We need to know what went on, and we need to start healing.” Joss and police are holding on to hope someone who was driving in the area around the time of the collision may still have dashcam video footage that shows the vehicle. Staples said police do not know the type of vehicle that was involved, after receiving varying descriptions. The investigation remains open, with police committed to bringing closure to Cody’s family after an “incredibly difficult” eight years, said Staples. “Unfortunately, to this point, no one has come forward with any video of the event, and no one who has directly been a witness to the actual event,” he said. “It is very rare that a collision like Cody’s goes unsolved, and that’s why we are making such a continued ongoing effort and commitment to the family to push forward on this one.” Anyone with information is asked to call police at 204-986-7085 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 204-786-8477. Every year around Christmas, Joss attends an event such as a news conference or vigil to plead for information. He has become a road safety advocate. “I’ve spoken in the past about how everybody has to make the right choices when they leave and start their day, whether you’re a pedestrian and being distracted walking across streets, whether you’re a distracted driver or you’re just a little too fatigued,” he said. “Everything you do has a ripple effect on everybody else. “The thoughts of the next person that’s going to lose their life to an accident that could have been prevented by making the right choice, it’s enough to make us tear up.” Staples said the traffic division’s strategy for 2023 includes targeted enforcement of impaired and distracted driving, and speeding. “We want to remind the public that the choices to drive impaired, drive distracted speeding — they can all have lethal consequences, and those simple choices you can make can truly be the difference between life and death,” he said. chris.kitching(a)freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @chriskitching

1 0

WFP: Service honours 22-year-old cyclist killed by snowplow (Dec22'22)
by Beth McKechnie 22 Dec '22

22 Dec '22

Service honours 22-year-old cyclist killed by snowplow City’s Indian community mobilizes for funeral of foreign student https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/2022/12/21/indian-muslim-community-… JAVED MUSHARRAF was warned to be careful when riding his bicycle in the winter, but the international student from India had two jobs and few options. The 22-year-old, who came to Winnipeg from the city of Hyderabad about two years ago, was struck and killed by a city-contracted front-end loader that was plowing snow in St. Boniface last Thursday. He was riding home to Balmoral Street and Cumberland Avenue on an electrically assisted bike. “He had to drive a bike to get to work,” said one of his three roommates, Mohsin Ahmed, 32. Ahmed said Musharraf told him riding the bus to work was difficult, and the devoutly Muslim young man did not have a Manitoba driver’s licence. Still, he got to his jobs at Canadian Tire and FedEx, where he worked shifts early in the day and late into the night. “He was a very good person… He was very hard-working, and very truthful,” said Ahmed. “We’re going through a tough time… he was like my younger brother… I personally feel very sad. It’s not acceptable (what happened.) He’s only 22.” Musharraf moved to Winnipeg to study automotive technology at Red River College Polytechnic, and had a bright future in his chosen field, having built the electric bike he was riding that night himself. Two off-duty Winnipeg police officers came upon the collision at about 10:20 p.m. on Dec. 15 near Mission and Plinguet streets. They gave Musharraf first aid while two Winnipeg Transit employees stopped to re-route traffic. Musharraf was pronounced dead shortly after emergency personnel arrived. The driver of the front-end loader stayed at the scene, police said. Musharraf’s roommates did not know, at first, why he hadn’t come home. “We didn’t hear (from him) for two days. He had passed a course, so we thought he might be celebrating with his friends,” said Shakir Shaikh, 22. “Normally he would go to work early and come back late at night, and we were so busy… On the second day, we called him.” Ahmed, who lived with Musharraf for about seven months, said he did not have many friends in Winnipeg, “because most of the time he worked hard and didn’t talk a lot.” But the young man had no issues with anyone, he said. The victim had no family in Winnipeg, and just an uncle and cousins in Calgary, while the rest of his loved ones are in India. The Community of Indian Muslims in Manitoba sprung into action after learning about the man’s death, said Irfanulla Rahamathulla, the organization’s vice-president. “We contacted the police and contacted the uncle (in Calgary), and we tried to arrange the funeral,” said Rahamathulla. “They were supposed to come, his family members, but flights got cancelled one after the other from Calgary, due to the snowstorm in Vancouver.” Rahamathulla said the community had arranged accommodations, food and transportation for the seven family members who planned to travel here to attend Musharraf’s funeral Wednesday, but because of the cancelled flights and unsafe winter driving conditions from Alberta, only Musharraf’s roommates and some members of the wider Winnipeg Muslim community were able to be at the service. Most of the mourners at the Winnipeg Grand Mosque on Waverley Street Wednesday afternoon did not know the young man whose funeral they were attending. “As a brother in Islam, we feel connected with everyone, to show compassion,” said Rahamathulla. Community members such as Atif Ijaz, 53, did not know the young student. “It’s very unfortunate, especially for the family, who are so far away and they cannot reach his funeral — it’s really heartbreaking,” said Ijaz, who is originally from Pakistan. “He was a student, and like so many other students, he was here to get educated, to get into the Canadian education system, and then enter professional life... It’s very unfortunate.” Bashshar Habibullah, 32, did not know Musharraf, either. “We have very few members of the Indian Muslim community — like 150 (people),” he said. “We are trying to help as much as we can… the worst part is none of his family can see him.” In the mosque, Imam Yacine Mamadou led about 100 people in prayer over Musharraf’s simple wooden casket, telling mourners to take life seriously and to do good deeds. As the mourners wheeled Musharraf’s casket from the mosque to a hearse that would take him to a Transcona cemetery, community members video-called his family so they could witness the procession. Winnipeg Police Service spokeswoman Const. Dani McKinnon said Wednesday the investigation into the collision is ongoing. No criminal or Highway Traffic Act charges have been laid. “We have confirmed that an independent contractor for the (city) owns the front-end loader,” McKinnon said. Public works department spokeswoman Julie Dooley would not comment specifically on the incident, directing questions to police, but said in general, the city investigates all incidents on job sites, working closely with both police and provincial Workplace Safety and Health officials. “In terms of training, both city employees and hired equipment operators are required to undergo training that covers safety, policies and service standards and other topics,” she said. “City of Winnipeg operators receive extensive and ongoing safety training. Hired hourly operators are contractually obligated to provide workers who are trained and qualified for their respective equipment.” erik.pindera(a)freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @erik_pindera

1 0

CBC coverage of the Harte Trail - Grand Trunk Trail crossing
by Katheryn Loewen 20 Dec '22

20 Dec '22

There's only one thing keeping people from biking uninterrupted from the Assiniboine Forest to Beaudry Provincial Park - the perimeter highway. But two trail organizations are looking to change that by building a pedestrian crossing. Guest host Marjorie Dowhos spoke with Phil Jenkinson and Liz Loewen about the plan: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-111-up-to-speed/clip/15955894-winnip…

1 0

WFP Analysis: A chance to reimagine road safety (Dec19'22)
by Beth McKechnie 19 Dec '22

19 Dec '22

*A chance to reimagine road safety * https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/2022/12/19/a-chance-to-r… DRIVERS have killed 11 pedestrians on Winnipeg streets in 2022. The language of that sentence might sound jarring, because we rarely humanize a driver’s role in vehicle collisions. We more commonly use object-based language that describes a vehicle doing something rather than a driver: a car jumped the curb and hit a pedestrian. This ambiguity is uniquely reserved for those operating motor vehicles, as we would never say a bike injured a pedestrian. We would say a cyclist did. This forgiving language reveals a deeply ingrained bias in how we perceive road users, and is a natural extension of the cultural dominance vehicles have in our urban mobility. City streets are viewed primarily as conduits for vehicles, with pedestrians and cyclists considered guests on streets made for cars. This public bias pushes planners, engineers and politicians to prioritize vehicle speed over pedestrian safety in street design. There’s a sense of inevitability to this year’s record number of pedestrian fatalities that mutes public reaction, almost as if it’s a price that must be paid. On average in Winnipeg, every second day a pedestrian or cyclist is injured in a vehicle collision seriously enough to file a police report. Every third day a pedestrian or cyclist is sent to hospital. Public response to these staggering statistics often seeks blame, asking if the pedestrian was on their phone, or if the cyclist rolled through a stop sign, believing that if we can identify personal fault, we will not be forced to re-evaluate our car-first priorities. To the family of a person killed in a vehicle collision, it doesn’t matter who is to blame. The question we should be asking is how do we ensure that when a mistake is made, no matter who makes it, someone doesn’t pay for it with their life? Pedestrian and cyclist fatalities are not inevitable, but the solution requires a cultural shift in the way planners, policy-makers and the public think about streets and how we use them. If we are going to blame anyone for collision deaths, our collective fingers should point directly at the streets we have designed to encourage them. This is where we must start looking for solutions. Cyclists and pedestrians are not protected by air bags and 1,000 kilograms of steel. The only way to provide protection to vulnerable road users is to build it into the streets themselves. To do this, many cities have adopted Vision Zero, a global urban-road safety initiative that promotes physical changes to street design, reduced speed limits, data tracking, enforcement and education. The Vision Zero strategy has allowed Helsinki, Finland, and Oslo, Norway, to bring pedestrian and cyclist fatalities down from more than 20 annually in the 1990s to zero in 2019. Edmonton became the first Canadian city to adopt Vision Zero in 2015 and has seen all vehicle fatalities decrease by 50 per cent, and pedestrian fatalities by nearly 30 per cent. Last summer, city council adopted the Winnipeg Road Safety Strategic Action Plan, an inspired document, based on Vision Zero principles, that outlines comprehensive strategies to change the culture of road safety in our city. The plan includes two striking maps that identify locations of pedestrian and cycling injury-collisions across the city, painting a clear picture of Winnipeg’s road safety. Not surprisingly, they reveal that collisions occur most where higher volumes of pedestrians are on streets designed to prioritize vehicle speeds. Downtown Winnipeg, with its wide, one-way streets and narrow sidewalks designed to funnel commuters out of the city centre as quickly as possible, is the most glaring example. High numbers of collisions are also found across the city on what were once commercial neighbourhood streets but have over time been transformed into pseudo commuter highways such McPhillips, Main and Marion streets. When Kelvin Street became Henderson Highway in 1963, it received the name “highway” to clearly indicate where its new priority lay. Osborne Street is another stark example of this condition. Perceived as a pedestrian shopping street, its primary design function is to funnel vehicles through Osborne Village to the suburbs. To increase traffic flow, trees were removed, sidewalks were narrowed and car lanes widened. All of this makes pedestrian safety a decided afterthought. We often refer to collisions as “accidents,” but it’s not an accident that so many pedestrians are hit on streets such as Osborne. The way we’ve designed them makes it inevitable. The Winnipeg Road Safety Strategic Action Plan identifies 67 actions to change this. These include installing traffic-calming elements such as speed humps, raised crosswalks and street narrowing; policy reviews of speed limits, oneway streets and right turns on red lights; and construction of protective elements including bike lanes, improved signals and curb extensions at intersections. The action plan is thorough and transformational, but to be successful it must be funded and supported by government. Edmonton successfully reduced traffic fatalities by directing more than $20 million per year of red-light camera revenue toward its strategic plan. It also recently committed $100 million to building protected bike lanes that will transform the city’s mobility. If Winnipeg wants to be just as serious about saving lives and building a culture of road safety, the evidence will not be found in another policy paper. It will be found in the budgets that support it. *Brent Bellamy is creative director at Number TEN Architectural Group.*

1 0

WFP: Transit trouble frustrates bus riders (Dec19'22)
by Beth McKechnie 19 Dec '22

19 Dec '22

Transit trouble frustrates bus riders https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/2022/12/19/transit-turmoil-frustrat… ERIN Riediger’s Winnipeg Transit tracking app told her the bus she was waiting for Dec. 9 was four minutes away. When the countdown reached zero, the estimated wait time jumped back up to four minutes. She kept checking, and waiting in the cold. About 20 minutes past the original arrival time, the bus scheduled for the Wellington Avenue stop vanished from the list entirely. “It didn’t say, ‘cancelled,’ it didn’t say, ‘unavailable,’ it just disappeared from the schedule,” Riediger said. “And then when I was walking to try to catch another bus, I ran into other people along the route, basically, that were waiting for the same bus, and I even said to a few of them: ‘Just so you know, it’s not coming.’” It’s a frustrating occurrence Winnipeggers know all too well. When Riediger shared her experience via social media, her replies were filled with people who, too, had waited for a scheduled bus that never showed up. Riediger uses the Winnipeg Bus Live app, which she said is usually accurate. She noted while she had the ability to walk to another bus stop, not everyone has that privilege. “For transit to be effective, you have to be able to trip plan, and you have to be able to have the reliability of transit so that you can show up to work on time,” she said. “So if you’re going to work in bad weather, you don’t have to wait. If you have mobility issues, you’re not trying to get yourself to another bus stop.” Schedules misaligned to actual vehicles on the road can be caused if a bus has a mechanical issue and is taken out of service — there can be a lag in between the bus being removed and it showing up on the Transit schedules — or as a result of staff shortages, a City of Winnipeg spokesperson said. Those staff shortages result in some buses never making it onto assigned routes, causing cancellations. As with a mechanical issue, sometimes there is a lag between the bus being cancelled and it showing up on riders’ schedules. “We, like many public transportation providers across North America, are experiencing staff shortages that, combined with an increase in operator absenteeism, have resulted in us designating a small number of buses as DNOs (did not operate),” the spokesperson said in an email. “While we never want to see DNOs, what we are experiencing currently is intermittent and is limited to the peak periods (rush hours).” Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505 president Romeo Ignacio said the reduction in transit service over the COVID-19 pandemic (which resulted in temporary layoffs, less frequent service and fewer buses on the road) made an impact that remains today. “The schedules that the city has provided were actually based on the last two years. And you know what the last two years was, right? There was no traffic, there were no people taking the buses,” said the leader of the union representing Transit bus operators. “And they cut the service, they cut the schedules. Not only that, they actually cut the service by six per cent, they actually cut the times. And that has an impact on whether the bus will show up on time or even show up at all.” The issue snowballs, Ignacio said, when you consider buses often take routes known as “interlining” — when a bus does one route for its first trip, then a different route for its second trip. This means if a bus is running late after completing a route, it can often get its next route cancelled entirely to keep it on schedule. “There’s actually a joke out there that ‘not in service’ is the most common bus (route) that the city has… It cascades.” Before the current shortage, the city would have drivers on standby to fill in for emergencies. Now, Ignacio said around 50 driver positions out of 1,100 remain unfilled. To have a fully-operational bus service, he said Transit would need 100 more operators. It’s a cyclical struggle — while 200 drivers have been trained in the last three years, 330 have resigned or retired, Ignacio said. “It takes time for an operator to develop that experience, where they can come in on time all the time, but with the cuts in the service, with the cuts in the schedules, with more traffic out there than the schedules will permit, and the lack of support… Because of all that missing, we’re having a tough time retaining even the (drivers) that we have right now.” malak.abas(a)freepress.mb.ca

1 0

WFP: Cyclist dies after collision with front-end loader (Dec17'22)
by Beth McKechnie 17 Dec '22

17 Dec '22

Cyclist dies after collision with front-end loader https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2022/12/16/cyclist-dies-afte… A CYCLIST was killed after colliding with a front-end loader in an industrial area near St. Boniface Thursday night. The man was riding his bike near the intersection of Mission and Plinguet streets when the incident happened around 10:20 p.m. Off-duty officers who were in the area tried to save him by giving him emergency care. The man was pronounced dead when emergency services arrived. Police said the driver of the front-end loader remained on the scene. The identity of the cyclist hasn’t been confirmed, and no charges have been laid against the driver of the front-end loader, Const. Jay Murray said Friday. “Typically, these types of investigations are very extensive, and require a lot of work before we ultimately determine the circumstances that led up to the collision,” he said. Murray said it’s rare for a front-end loader to be involved in such an incident. “Anecdotally speaking, it doesn’t seem to be a common thing,” he said. “The reality is that there’s quite a bit of front-end loader work that occurs across the city in the winter months, we live in a city where there’s often quite a bit of snow. It doesn’t seem to be something that happens commonly.” Bike Winnipeg executive director Mark Cohoe said the tragedy underscores the need to address cycling infrastructure. “These deaths, and these serious injuries, I think we really have to recognize that these are preventable circumstances, they are preventable events,” he said. It’s time, Cohoe said, for the city to consider a “vision zero” policy — a strategy adopted in cities across the world that looks at city planning and road safety with the goal of reaching zero traffic-related deaths and severe injuries, rather than viewing collisions as inevitable. “When we have these serious collisions, especially fatalities, are we doing an audit to look at what were the circumstances that led to this and asking ourselves, are there sort of links in that chain of events and circumstances that we can alter so that this doesn’t happen again?” he said. There is no bike path or sidewalk on the section of road where Thursday’s tragedy occurred. City planning should ensure people who cycle outside high-traffic areas are safe in winter, Cohoe said. While he hopes this tragedy will inspire those conversations at the municipal level, Cohoe said he isn’t confident. “Obviously, the police will investigate. I would hope that that will be shared. MPI will look at this. But to what level does it come back to that system of looking at our roads, our programming, our public education, our maintenance and looking at how we’re training the staff that clean the streets?” he said. “Am I confident that it will be filtered back up through that change? No.” At the Winnipeg Repair Education and Cycling Hub, the organizers who create community bike programs are well-prepared for winter cycling. While the group could make safety recommendations, executive director Lucas Stewart said nothing can replace safer infrastructure. “We recommend a studded front tire to help with steering and having a bike that you don’t mind getting a little rusty, because salt is applied to the streets,” he said. “The limiting factor really is having a safe place to ride either with or without cars, and the quality of the snow clearing.” Along with infrastructure changes, Stewart said he’d like to see urban cycling implemented into elementary school education. “My daughter’s four. I have a dream that when she’s 13, she can get herself to soccer practice by bike,” he said. “That’s not the case at the moment.” malak.abas(a)freepress.mb.ca

1 0

WFP: Citizen shovellers want clear paths, better city response (Dec12'22)
by Beth McKechnie 12 Dec '22

12 Dec '22

Citizen shovellers want clear paths, better city response https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2022/12/12/citizen-shovelers… FOR some who recently watched the city threaten to fine Winnipeggers who took clearing snow from bike lanes into their own hands, it feels like history repeating itself. When the water rose and froze over the Omand’s Creek footbridge in 2019, Chris Beauvilain and others felt they were forced to clear the snow- and ice-covered bridge themselves. The city had blocked off the pedestrian link and said it wouldn’t be clearing it until spring, despite repeated requests for service from Wolseley community members. “The city had made a choice at that time… which we thought was unacceptable, given that’s our toboggan park, my kids used that trail to get to their grandparents’ house,” Beauvilain said Thursday. “And so we went and did it.” At the time, the public works department said the job was too dangerous to complete, due to thick ice blocking off machine access. After Beauvilain and Brad Hignell spent hours chipping the ice off the bridge with hand tools on a December Saturday, the city eventually plowed the entire trail leading up to the bridge on either side. It didn’t come with a thank you, however — rather, the city said through a spokesperson the pair’s efforts “did not mitigate the public safety risk” and the unsanctioned cleaning, luckily, hadn’t affected the bridge’s structure. The idea of fining the shovellers was brought up but eventually discarded; internal emails obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation through a freedom of information request and shared with the Free Press described their work as “reckless.” “It was a pretty frustrating experience to do that, and then be threatened with fines,” Beauvilain said, adding people were fed up with slow-moving response to snow-clearing. “And I just felt like the city was being kind of a bully and aggressive, and I didn’t really understand it.” Beauvilain said he feels “inspired” by residents who have been clearing icy paths across the city in recent weeks after complaints to the city’s 311 service reportedly went unanswered. Last month, a group took matters into their own hands and dug ice and snow from a bike lane on Westminster Avenue. They were given a warning of possible bylaw fines. Undeterred, they later cleared a lane in the Exchange District. A City of Winnipeg spokesperson clarified it had no plans to fine anyone. Beauvilain said he was a little surprised the city was quick once again to jump to threatening fines before backing down. “It seems so ridiculous, but it is not uncommon for me to see these kinds of situations happen and the response is typically quite defensive and aggressive,” he said. “I’ll give credit to the city this time, the spokesperson was very clear… but then also kind of surprised that we’re still dealing with the same issues as a winter city.” Hillary Rosentreter, who has been organizing groups to clear ice and snow from lanes, didn’t live in Winnipeg in 2019, and hadn’t heard about the Omand’s Creek incident until recently. “I’m not surprised… I’m certain that this has been a longer-standing problem than any of us could imagine,” she said. Like Beauvilain, she acknowledges the city has been making efforts to streamline its snow-clearing processes, but said until it moves faster, people will continue to be inclined to take the work upon themselves. “I’m not necessarily concerned about them learning from their mistakes. More so I’m more concerned about… the amount of time it takes before policies are changed, the amount of time it takes before 311 gets to a trouble spot, that kind of thing,” Rosentreter said. A motion from Coun. Matt Allard to update bylaws to remove the possibility of receiving a fine for clearing snow off of public sidewalks and bike paths was met with interest at city hall last week. malak.abas(a)freepress.mb.ca

1 0

CBC: Edmonton set to build $100M in bike lanes as city council votes to amend capital budget (Dec9'22)
by Beth McKechnie 11 Dec '22

11 Dec '22

After hours of debate Friday, council approved a plan to fund $100 million to implement the city-wide bike lane network, many of which are multi-mode paths. Full story: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-city-council-1.6681387

1 0

WFP: ‘Not one easy solution’ amid deadly year on Winnipeg roads (Dec7'22)
by Beth McKechnie 08 Dec '22

08 Dec '22

‘Not one easy solution’ amid deadly year on Winnipeg roads https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2022/12/07/not-one-easy-solu… The heightened death toll on Winnipeg roads this year is “bleak” and “awful,” an active transportation advocate says. Katheryn Loewen, senior sustainable transportation co-ordinator at the Green Action Centre and a Bike Winnipeg board member, said most pedestrian deaths are preventable, despite often being written off as accidents. “Where the blame lies, it depends on the situation, but where the responsibility lays, it’s usually pretty clear it’s either in road design of the city and the manufacturers of cars,” Loewen said Wednesday. “One person involved is wielding a heavy machine that is capable of instantly killing someone if they’re not careful, and the other person, the pedestrian, is not… The responsibility is imbalanced.” Manufacturers are building autos larger than in previous generations, worsening injuries when collisions happen, Loewen said. Cities could increase the number of crosswalks and improve pedestrian infrastructure — with sidewalks farther and protected from roads — to reduce risks, she added. “It’s a big issue and there’s not one easy solution, but road design is definitely a big factor,” Loewen said. “People should be able to get around on foot and on bike and on scooter and wheelchairs and not be worried about (collisions) like this happening to them constantly.” Eleven pedestrians had been killed in Winnipeg so far this year, compared to six in all of 2021, police data show. An additional six pedestrians have been seriously injured after bring struck by vehicles. Most recently, a pedestrian was killed Dec. 3 on the southbound Century Street entrance to the St. James Bridge in a two-vehicle collision. In total, at least 21 people, including vehicle occupants, have been killed in road collisions this year, compared to nine in 2021. Three pedestrians were killed in hit-and-runs in less than a week in October, while another hit-and-run claimed the life of an 81-year-old vehicle occupant in the same time frame. In 2021, two people were charged for failing to remain at the scene of a collision in which a pedestrian was killed. Three face such charges so far this year, according to the latest police data available. The Winnipeg Police Service would not provide any updates Wednesday on the four fatal October hit-and-run investigations. A request first made Tuesday to speak with the head of the police traffic division in general terms about collision investigations was denied Wednesday, with a spokeswoman saying the inspector was not available “at this time.” A former city police officer — who retired in 1991 and now runs a firm focused on helping drivers fight traffic tickets — said collision investigations can be difficult. “Hit-and-run or leaving the scene of an accident — that’s always a tricky investigation,” said Len Eastoe of Traffic Ticket Experts. Eyewitness accounts, licence plate numbers and dash, business and home surveillance video footage are among the crucial evidence that needs to be collected, he said. Police have made public pleas for such footage to be brought forward to investigators in the spate of October hit-and-runs. Pieces of vehicles left at the scene too are key, Eastoe said, because the wreckage can be sometimes tracked to a specific type of vehicle. “Sometimes, they then have the colour or make and model even of the vehicle they’re looking for.” Police have past said traffic investigators use, among other tools, a scanner to create 3D images of collision scenes in reconstructions. Eastoe said recovering vehicles involved in collisions is “huge” for police. “It gives you all sorts of other possibilities. Who’s the registered owner? It gives you a person to talk to in that regard. Sometimes, the vehicles are stolen and just haven’t been reported that way yet, and that may be legitimate. It may also be bogus that it’s been reported stolen,” said the former cop who worked in uniformed patrol and plainclothes. “If they can’t say it was stolen or you can prove it wasn’t, then the owner can be held responsible.” erik.pindera(a)freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @erik_pindera

1 1