Crosswalk redesign, safety reminders required By: Editorial Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Tuesday, Mar. 26, 2019

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/03/2019 (2104 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the aftermath of tragedy, there are always questions.

Why did it happen? Who should be held accountable? What can be done to prevent it from happening again?

And so it was earlier this month in Winnipeg after a four-year-old girl and her mother were struck by a motor vehicle while attempting to cross Isabel Street in a crosswalk at Alexander Avenue. Both were injured, and the girl later died.

The accident took place at 11:55 a.m., shortly before a crossing guard was due to begin a shift at the intersection. But the crosswalk, like many in the city, is outfitted with overhead flashing lights which pedestrians can activate by pushing a button on the light standard before stepping off the curb.

In this case, as in many cases involving pedestrians being struck in Winnipeg crosswalks, the flashing lights proved to be an insufficient safety measure, either because the motorist didn’t see or ignored them, or the pedestrians did not wait to ensure traffic had stopped before entering the roadway.

The exact details of the March 18 incident are no doubt being studied intensely by investigators; what’s also required, however, is a broader examination of crosswalk safety in Winnipeg. For many years — decades, really — concerned citizens and various elected officials have called for an overhaul of the city’s pedestrian corridors because their current configuration amounts to an ongoing invitation to vehicle-pedestrian collisions.

At greatest issue is the design of Winnipeg crosswalks, with warning lights positioned high overhead, where it’s possible for drivers close to the intersection not to notice the lights are flashing. After an eight-year-old boy was struck and killed by a vehicle in a pedestrian corridor on St. Anne’s Road in February 2018, additional flashing amber lights were installed at a lower position. Such a measure should be considered for all crosswalks in the city.

Clearer signage is also needed on crosswalk medians to ensure pedestrians activate the proper set of flashing lights; in too many cases, people crossing a divided street push the wrong button at the midpoint and activate the flashing lights behind them rather than in front of them, giving no warning to oncoming motorists.

And beyond the design flaws in Winnipeg’s pedestrian crosswalks, of course, there are human elements to be considered. Many pedestrians — wrongly, with occasionally tragic results — assume the mere act of pressing the flashing-lights button activates a force field that will prevent them from being run down by an in-motion motor vehicle. They step off the curb, ignorantly or perhaps defiantly, in the mistaken belief that all approaching traffic will have stopped.

As long ago as 1984, then-mayor Bill Norrie and several council contemporaries called for the city’s pedestrian-corridor program to be scrapped, arguing that button-activated flashing lights gave pedestrians a false sense of security, leading to unnecessary crosswalk collisions.

Some drivers, meanwhile, have a tendency to ignore the requirement for added caution when approaching a crosswalk. Whether it’s a result of not seeing flashing lights or simply ignoring them, many motorists will continue at full speed through a crosswalk when all other lanes have stopped. Common sense dictates a safety-focused stop, but that kind of sense often seems to be anything but common on Winnipeg streets.

After the tragedy, and after the questions, what’s needed are answers and action, in the form of public-safety reminders to both motorists and pedestrians, and a long-overdue redesign of Winnipeg’s pedestrian corridors.