A Free Press investigation into the city's transportation division

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/better-sorry-than-safe-576244922.html

IF a car is going faster than a car going slower, does the car going faster need more time to stop than the car going slower?

For years, that was the question independent researcher Christian Sweryda would ask the class when he was invited to guest lecture at universities in Winnipeg on traffic issues.

Then he would tell everyone who thought the faster car needed more time to stop to raise their hand.

“The whole class would put their hands up, thinking: ‘What’s the catch?’” Sweryda says.

“And I’d say: ‘You guys are now more qualified to do traffic engineering than the City of Winnipeg’s own engineers, because this is what we’re fighting over.’” The city’s long standing policy was to have uniform yellow light times — four seconds long— at every intersection, regardless of speed limit. Sweryda waged a battle against the city for more than a decade in an effort to get it changed.

His research into traffic-related issues, which has uncovered evidence of financial mismanagement in the public works department and triggered an audit, is the subject of the Free Press investigative series Red Light, Green Light, No Oversight.

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On Oct. 16, 2015, when James Aisaican-Chase was on his way to a chemotherapy appointment, he approached the intersection of Bishop Grandin Boulevard and River Road and the green light turned to yellow.

Instead of slamming on his brakes in a panic stop, Aisaican-Chase maintained a steady speed and sailed through the intersection, clearing it in 4.3 seconds— roughly one-third of a second longer than the four seconds allotted.

The speed limit on Bishop Grandin is 80 kilometres per hour. When Aisaican-Chase received a red-light camera ticket in the mail, he decided to fight it, believing his decision to clear the intersection was the safest thing to do in the moment.

The decision to fight the ticket led to a complicated and protracted court battle, which was bankrolled by Todd Dube, founder of Wise Up Winnipeg. Over the years, Dube spent more than $100,000 of his own money fighting the city’s yellow-light policy.

When the case went to court, Grant Lindgren, a Winnipeg Police Service crash reconstructionist, was called to testify as an expert witness for the Crown.

On the stand, Lindgren conceded the city wasn’t following Institute of Traffic Engineering standards and said he wasn’t aware of any other jurisdiction that runs its yellow lights the way Winnipeg does.

“Maybe they could reconsider their timing,” Lindgren said.

Dube hired Darryl Schnarr, a forensic engineer and accident reconstruction expert from Ontario, to write a report on the case.

“In order to evaluate the reasonableness of Mr. Aisaican-Chase’s decision to proceed through the intersection, the appropriateness of the current yellow traffic signal duration must be evaluated,” Schnarr wrote.

His report was scathing. Schnarr noted that Winnipeg’s harsh winters negatively impact road conditions and make stopping more difficult, which means the city should be erring on the side of caution when it comes to yellow-light duration.

The yellow-light timing at Bishop Grandin Boulevard-River Road intersection was shorter than the ITE standard by 1.2 seconds.

Using photo-radar enforcement data, Schnarr calculated that if the city did follow the ITE standard, 93 per cent of the tickets at the intersection in 2015 would not have been issued. In 2016, 88 per cent would not have been issued.

“It is clear that a 4.0 second yellow traffic signal duration is appropriate for some roadways and not appropriate for others,” Schnarr wrote.

He said that four-second yellows were fine for streets with 50 km/h speed limits, but for anything beyond, the yellow-light timing should be extended.

But the city’s policy wasn’t just increasing violations at intersections, it was also impacting safety. Schnarr noted that short yellows on high-speed roads increase the risk of broadside— also referred to as T-bones, the most dangerous kind of crash— and rear end collisions.

“(It is) clear that the 4.0 second yellow traffic signal duration does not comply with competent traffic engineering practices,” Schnarr wrote.

“Continuing to employ a 4.0 second traffic signal duration will contribute to traffic fatalities in the future, and may have contributed to traffic fatalities in the past.”

His report proved prophetic a year later.

On Sept. 4, 2018, a 61-year-old man was killed while riding his bike at the T-shaped intersection at Bishop Grandin and Lagimodiere boulevards. He was hit by a truck that failed to stop at a red light.

Eventually, Sweryda was able to convince Coun. Matt Allard, the chair of the public works committee, that the city’s yellow-light times were wrong. Allard (St. Boniface) moved a motion on Sept. 16, 2020 to fix it.

“It’s another one that was talked about for years.… Basically, Chris convinced me the yellow light timing was off for high-speed roads,” Allard says.

The city increased the yellow-light timing to 4.3 seconds on roads with a 70 km/h speed limit, and 4.7 seconds where it’s 80 km/h.

All told, 110 intersections were affected by the change— although the yellow-light durations are still below ITE standards.

During the next two months, photo-radar violations at Bishop Grandin and River dropped from 357 to 50 when compared to the same time period in 2019. At Lagimodiere and Grassie boulevards, the number fell to 44 from 280 the previous year.

“Winnipeg’s amber light times used to be a uniform 4.0 seconds, but we have been able to more precisely calibrate individual intersections’ timing based on national and international best practices, engineering knowledge and awareness of local context,” a city spokesman said in a statement.

“This is reflected in the Traffic Signal Timing Guidelines we use to determine duration of lights on all city streets. For further context, the Traffic Signals Branch has evolved considerably since previous full review of the timing guidelines (in 2014).”

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The short yellow-light duration wasn’t the only city traffic policy Sweryda believed was negatively impacting safety but benefiting photo-radar revenue.

On April 8, 2014, he filed a complaint to the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Manitoba, targeting three city traffic engineers.

Sweryda argued the city did not post speed-reduction signs on both sides of divided roads and one-way streets, a practice “not consistent with Canadian engineering standards.”

That amounted to a “serious engineering deficiency” and “malpractice,” because motorists may “fail to see the speed reduction signs, particularly when there is a large semi-trailer truck between the motorist and speed reduction signs.”

A three-person committee was tasked with reviewing the complaint. They eventually determined that only one of the three engineers— Luis Escobar— was responsible for the policy. During the investigation, Escobar admitted he had conducted no engineering analysis to depart from the speed-reduction signage standards detailed in theManual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Canada.