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The politics of traffic safety in Winnipeg
CURT PANKRATZ
CITIES are complex networks of human interaction and whether by walking, cycling, taking the bus, or driving, thousands of people move around Winnipeg every day. The role of science in ensuring safety is crucial.
But in Winnipeg, science has been displaced over the years by political wrangling and lobby group pressure.
A significant turning point was the dissolving of the Manitoba Highway Traffic Board on March 1, 2019.
The board had jurisdiction over traffic safety and was designed to prevent its politicization. In order to change speed limits, for example, municipalities were required to apply to the board and public hearings would ensue. The board had the power to deny requests that, based on scientific evidence, compromised public safety.
Since the board’s elimination, there have been more than 40 arbitrary speed limit reductions scattered throughout Winnipeg, many of which had earlier been denied by the board. The political pressure has come from all sides, including lobby groups and organizations like Norwood Grove BIZ, which succeeded in getting a previously denied reduction in hopes of putting restaurant patios on Marion.
There is also fiscal pressure and the additional enforcement revenue that came from this change has been enormous.
Speed limits have been the focus of politicization because they seem so simple.
But scientifically, reducing speed limits does not necessarily lead to greater safety. In fact, it can make things worse.
When a speed limit is too divergent from a road’s design speed, vehicle speeds vary greatly. Some people drive reasonably based on their surroundings and others follow the posted limit. This makes it more difficult for other road users to judge the speed of oncoming traffic and thereby affects cyclists and vehicles attempting to turn onto the street.
Speed variation also leads to lane changing and following too closely, each of which lead to far more injury crashes than speeding does.
Most importantly, when a speed limit is too low, drivers must focus attention on their speedometer. In traffic safety, we want driving indications to be things outside the car and speedometers should never be the main cue in urban settings.
Now, add a false sense of security by pedestrians and cyclists and things get dangerous. Slower impact speeds are less deadly, but that does not mean that lowering a posted speed limit will attain that, as Winnipeg city engineers acknowledged in a 2013 study when they recommended that Winnipeg not reduce residential speed limits.
The recent example of the proposed speed limit reduction on Wellington illustrates how intense this has become. At the EPC meeting on Dec. 4, 53 lobbyists spoke in favour of the speed limit reduction. It was a parade of science-free emotional appeals, the politicization of Rob Jenner’s tragic death and a few insults.
There were a few incompatible comparisons to other places with no scientific foundation (most notably, Winnipeg does not have freeways to remove commuters from local roads as they do in Amsterdam as well as other Canadian cities). The most frequently cited evidence was “near misses” — something way too subjective and unverifiable to base public safety decisions on.
It is a common recourse for those lacking real evidence.
EPC voted against the speed limit reduction, and instead approved a motion to prioritize the building of protected cycling infrastructure on the street (which, incidentally, would be the science- based recommendation for Wellington).
On Dec. 12, City Council met to consider that recommendation. Only four public speakers are allowed for each motion — two in favour and two opposed. One lobby group took all four of the spots so that there could be no presentations that might conflict with their narrative.
All four speakers ridiculed city councillors for not reducing the speed limit, even accusing them of not caring about children’s safety and lacking integrity. This seemed to be more about achieving complete and total victory than finding an evidence-based solution.
Such usurpation would not have been possible at Traffic Board hearings.
Also problematic were the ways in which certain councillors approached the issue. At EPC, one councillor tried to bargain, saying that if 30 km/h wouldn’t be passed, maybe they can compromise on 40 km/h. That is not how traffic safety works. You don’t just pick a number because it is halfway between what you want and what is currently in effect. Another councillor was concerned about their track record as one who gets motions passed. These things have no place in safety policymaking. Another councillor raised a critical point — it is also unfair when a more privileged ward gets priority over other wards that may have a greater need for safety improvements. Wards should not be battling each other for changes that should be determined by science.
If we do not build science back into the process, Winnipeg will continue to develop into a patchwork of politically motivated traffic zones rather than a complete, evidence-based urban system. That’s not going to do much to improve safety and it’s certainly not going to make things more civil.
Curtis Pankratz, is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Winnipeg.