Pedestrians at risk

New numbers show Hamilton streets are the deadliest place for people to walk or jog in the province. In the last year, six people have been killed on the city’s streets. So Wednesday, concerned citizens offered some ways to try and prevent these deaths. Cindy Csordas has the story.

In Hamilton, looking both ways before you cross the street is advice that will likely save your life. Six people have been killed by cars in the last year.

Justin Jones is with Yes We Cannon: “It’s a pretty sobering statistic given that 5 of those deaths were seniors.”

Jones, Sara Mayo and Dave Stevens, all with separate organizations in Hamilton, promote safe walking and cycling. So they presented a policy called complete streets to the city to hopefully prevent deaths from happening.

Sara is with the Social Planning and Research Council of Canada: “Some of the intersections where the seniors have been killed the city’s already made improvements but some of those intersections there had been calls by residents to improve those intersections before those deaths.”

Like this intersection at Mohawk and Upper Gage. An 83-year old woman was killed here in May when a person made a right hand turn on a red light. That’s no longer allowed at this intersection, but our camera’s caught at least one driver disobeying the signs. Mayo says pedestrians in Hamilton have a 42% higher chance of being injured or killed here when compared to the rest of Ontario. Mayo says Hamilton is behind other communities when ensuring the safety of pedestrians. She says more than 500 North American communities have already adopted the complete streets policy.

Justin: “You start to think about it from the edge line in so you think first about the sidewalks, then cycling infrastructure, then transit then about cars so you really make sure you’re accommodating all road users.”

Jones applauds the city for it’s bus only lanes, lanes for cyclists but says sidewalks need to be wider in some parts of the city.

We just got off the phone with Steve Molloy, the Project Manager of the Pedestrian Mobility Plan and he says the city has agreed to make some changes to improve pedestrian safety but the changes still need to be reviewed by the public. That takes 30 days. And the changes still need to be ratified by City Council.