Calgary’s tipping point on pedestrian carnage
Calgary is nearing a tipping point regarding pedestrian injuries and deaths.
Forget the tired arguments about who is morally superior, who is right and who is wrong: people in a car, or people walking along the street.
When we’re talking about children and mothers and sons and grandparents being maimed on a daily basis in our city, sometimes fatally, such debates seem laughably feeble.
They are not worth our time. The problem is too urgent for such posturing.
Take last Monday as an example. A father and his seven-year-old daughter were struck by a right-turning vehicle when crossing 24 Ave NE at Edmonton Trail.
Meanwhile, in Arbour Lake, a 10-year-old girl was hit and taken to hospital in serious condition.
You can’t turn around without hearing about another incident. In Calgary, at least one pedestrian is hit per day, on average.
There was a time when these injuries and deaths were viewed as a fact of city life. So why are we paying more attention now?
For one thing, we’re more aware of the human toll as relatives share victims’ stories online.
Last week after the man and girl were hit by Edmonton Trail, the man’s mother, Kari Major, took to social media to post pictures of the victims in hospital.
In one photo, the girl clutches a couple stuffies, her face badly bruised.
You can’t look at that photo and remain unaffected.
Images like this are a powerful reminder that making a city safe for people to walk is not an ideological matter. It’s a human one.
We’re also more aware that such carnage is preventable. Cities can reduce the rate of injury and death by lowering speed limits and designing safer streets.
Jodi Morel has seen the conversation about pedestrian safety change in recent years. She organizes Slow Down YYC, a group pushing for reduced residential speed limits.
When Morel started this work in 2012, she got a lot of backlash. “There were a lot of people who felt they just didn’t need to slow down, or that it made sense,” recalls Morel.
Now, the tone of the conversation has changed, thanks to news coverage, social media and politicians making the issue a priority.
As the public gets educated, it takes the problem more seriously, says Morel.
“They’re saying, ‘This isn’t acceptable. How come we’re putting up with this?’” says Morel.
It brings to mind drinking and driving, or smoking around children. Such behaviours were once widely viewed as acceptable, until society got wise and decided they weren’t worth the cost any longer.
We’re close to that point on pedestrian safety, if we haven’t arrived already.
City hall’s long-awaited pedestrian strategy, slated to go before a council committee in April, can’t come a moment too soon.
