Walk This Way: Sault Ste. Marie Needs to Step Up the Pace to Accommodate Pedestrians

Authors note: This article was prepared in reference to the pedestrian collisions that occurred across from Cambrian Mall on February 20^th, 2016 and a second one on June 28^th, 2016 when a pedestrian was struck by a vehicle on Great Northern Road and killed.  Safe road user conditions continue to deteriorate.  We hope to motivate urgent city action that is long overdue.  While we encourage continued individual prudence, we recognize the evidence that such individual action alone will never resolve these problems.

We know that people do not choose to be poor.  But many are, too many.  We know that, while people may choose to smoke, that decision is highly influenced by their environments.  We know too that certain segments of the population are at higher risk of many diseases for which they do not choose.  We also know that people engage in risky behaviours, and again, those choices are highly influenced by their environments.

In all these situations, we need to look upstream to determine why some people choose behaviour that is simply unhealthy.  As Monique Begin, former Minister of Health asks, why would we treat someone who gets sick only to send them back into the same environment that made them sick in the first place?  Despite the illusion of free will, much of our decision making architecture is simply beyond the reach of individual decision making.

Which brings us to the pedestrian that was struck by a southbound vehicle February 20th while crossing against the lights on Great Northern Road.  This situation could have been much worse as much as it should have been prevented. The blame, as is often the case, was laid on the pedestrian.  Let’s look at the situation from the pedestrian point of view.

Many pedestrians do cross the road between and against lights illegally.  Trunk, Queen and Great Northern are perfect examples.  At risk of sounding like a bad joke, why would pedestrians cross a street illegally, say between lights where road traffic only comes from two directions?  Why not?! To get to the other side, legally, a pedestrian may have to walk 15 minutes to get to a controlled crossing, only to cross at one of the most unfriendly and dangerous pedestrian crossing areas imaginable; signalized intersections, where vehicle movement is from twelve directions. Too many lights drivers say? Well consider this – if there are no pedestrians, there’s no stopping.  If there are pedestrians, we increase safety and yield them the right of way.

Even this is only a start.  Evidence shows that a pedestrian involved in a collision at 30 kph has a 90% chance of surviving, whereas one involved in a collision at 50 kph has only a 10% chance of survival.  So here too the city has enormous latitude to encourage active and healthy mobility and reduce jaywalking by simply lowering the unposted speed limit in the city to 30 kph.  That’s a no brainer on residential roads.  Roads that have high pedestrian traffic (high for the Sault) such as Great Northern Road, Wellington, Queen, Bay, Second Line, Gore, etc. would benefit too from a reduced speed limit.  The goal is to, yes, slow down vehicular traffic.  Moreover, smooth vehicle movement at
30 kph would actually decrease travel times over the existing rabbit start and sudden stop of current traffic signalization.

The city has also been remiss in reconstructing and resurfacing roads without the requisite traffic calming structures and modifications that encourage walking and reduce speeding.  Great Northern Road between the Sault and Area Hospital and Second Line is a perfect example of where tree plantings and greenery, pedestrian refuges and setbacks, centre barriers, narrower lanes, chicanes and other features would have worked hand in hand with reduced speed limits and additional controlled crossings to facilitate and encourage pedestrian traffic and safer healthier environments. These designs are simply more attractive and enjoyable too and less costly to construct and maintain!

Such traffic calming measures should be standard practice whenever a road is resurfaced or reconstructed, whether a residential or arterial road.  The objective would be to facilitate road traffic that is moving smoothly, conscious and aware at all times, and unable to engage in distracted driving, speeding or other illegal and dangerous activities that place themselves and other road users at risk. Why not? Such road designs also save enforcement, policing and
emergency resources for more important duties and it also de-escalates road rage.

Second Line East, for example, recently reconstructed right past a new high school is simply a disaster – too high a speed, lanes too wide, no landscaping, and a centre lane for what?! The corner store diagonal from the legal crossing configuration at Pine and the high school (where students cross) is only a collision waiting to happen. This is what we call an intentional Darwinian social behaviour experiment that sets up youth to fail. Simple solution: permit pedestrian crossing from both sides of Pine Street along with a 30 kph posted speed and pedestrian activated
crosswalks.  The same can be said at the top of Willow Avenue and all those other absurd intersections that prohibit pedestrian crossing on one side simply to speed up traffic.

Using these suggestions as a starting point, we can also adopt other planning tools such as parklets, setback reductions, and parking space reductions and policies that equitably raise parking costs to strengthen and complement pedestrianization and produce appealing and attractive urban streetscapes oriented towards people.

The Hub Trail and similar infrastructure are a great way to help increase leisure walking, but its’ location can stifle utilitarian walking; the Hub Trail, due to its locations, minimally affects vehicular use, and in some cases, actually increases vehicle use. We simply need far more Hub Trail around town on par with the number of roads.  If that means replacing roads with non-motorized access routes, that’s fair. Moreover, the sprawling nature of the Sault is a powerful strike against walking.  The city must actively design our urban landscape to discourage vehicle use. It is important to de-normalize excess vehicle use as we de-normalize smoking, yet still afford people freedom to choose where they live and work.  The above practices can then be complemented with narrower and fewer roads (road diets), additional traffic calming, revenue generating road tolls to pay for infrastructure (such as parks, traffic calming, public transit and bicycle lanes), development charges, and reduced levels of service for vehicles.

While behaviour – both driver and pedestrian – is slippery to control under the best of conditions, these steps would go a long way to reduce dangerous decisions such as jaywalking.  Leaving it up to police to enforce behaviour on poorly designed roads oriented towards unhealthy planning and excessive vehicle use is an extraordinary waste of time, resources and taxpayer money.  When the situation escalates, as it has far too often recently, it’s bordering on negligence.

At budget time, this should serve as a reminder to city council that they still have a long way to go, and efficiencies (such as sidewalk and roadway budgets) begin at the planning and development stage rather than imposing austerity at operational stages. Thinking upstream, we need to determine whether we want a spread out sprawled city a truck can clear in 7 minutes and a downtown cleared of everyone except the perception of crime and meth clinics where the important talk is gas prices. Or, do we want a city that accommodates all modes of mobility in a safe, healthy, fair, friendly manner that encourages local business development, attracts people to the community, facilitates social, cultural and economic development, improves health and emphasizes access over mobility where no one cares about corporate gas prices?  This is an important choice, because, despite lip service for the latter, the Sault is exclusively constructed for the former. You can’t have both.

The city needs to look upstream at their own planning to understand why pedestrians cross the street illegally. Pedestrians are not fully to blame for their decision any more than a truck driver is to blame for deciding to drive two blocks, or a tourist to drive across a road. Our choices are a direct consequence of the environments we navigate. If we want to avoid future tragedies, the city needs to look upstream for solutions. We need to stop blaming victims and start finding solutions that reshape our decision making architecture to avoid risk.

Until the default choice is walking, cycling or transit, the Sault will remain an outlier.  The city simply has to stop forcing people to choose between risky pedestrian behaviour or driving. Pedestrians are not to blame for their decisions any more than the city and province are to blame for the decisions pedestrians make.

Where cities around the world are eliminating vehicles, creating pedestrian corridors, re-greening cities, removing parking and paved drainage runoff, and placing prohibitions on certain traffic movements and licenses, and saving huge sums of money while creating more attractive environments and thriving businesses that attract people, the Sault has a lot of catching up to do, despite our recent successes.  Given our current situation, we might want to think more about attracting people.