Simple changes at intersections can make pedestrians feel safer: read

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Relatively simple changes can improve the sense of safety at high-traffic intersections, according to work by a team from the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) in collaboration with Piétons Québec.

These changes, in particular, led to a halving of what the researchers call “interactions” between pedestrians and cars, in particular, incidents where the vehicle and pedestrian are separated by less than two meters.

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The data showed that pedestrian collisions are more frequent at intersections, and the presence of a major street at an intersection increases the risk of vehicle-pedestrian collisions, said Professor Marie-Solay Cloutier, head of the Piétons et Espace laboratory. urban according to INRS.

However, he added, “We had an initial hypothesis that there would be fewer (interventions) at these intersections.”

“We wondered if it was because it's harder to blend in at an intersection with major streets,” Cloutier said.

Intersections involving arterials are more difficult, the Piétons Québec document explains, because of the large volume of vehicles, their high speeds and the configuration of traffic lanes that are usually more numerous and wider.

An analysis of Quebec traffic reports between 2015 and 2019 shows that 38 percent of pedestrian deaths and 42 percent of pedestrian injuries occurred on arterial roads.

Cloutier and his colleagues studied seven intersections in collaboration with Montreal, Longueuil, Laval and Gatineau. All of these municipalities were engaged in making changes to the studied intersections.

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While some of these intersections served as controls for comparison purposes, others were sites of intervention, such as adding pedestrian lights; sidewalk widening; adding pavement overlays; adding a pedestrian shelter (median that stops when unable to complete a crosswalk); removal of a traffic lane by adding bicycle lanes; and turning on the fast flashing square light.

“What's interesting about this project is that we're not talking about very expensive or very large redevelopments,” Cloutier said.

As part of this project, 543 pedestrians, with a slightly higher proportion of women, were interviewed before and after the intervention.

Before the interventions, less than half of the surveyed pedestrians felt safe at major arterial intersections. But pedestrians interviewed later said they were less pressed for time when crossing; the number of pedestrians who believe that drivers are driving above the set speed has decreased; Pedestrians' respect for light has increased at the arterial street intersection.

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“Typically, the places where we interact the most are the places where a pedestrian is most likely to be hit,” Cloutier said. “In that sense, we're trying to prevent collisions by seeing what happens before they happen.”

For example, at the corner of Crémazie Blvd. The number of interactions between pedestrians and vehicles in Montreal and rue d'Iberville dropped to 5.1 percent from 20.5 percent before the intervention. Also, the share of pedestrians driving a car decreased slightly, from 51.5 percent to 45.5 percent.

On the other hand, the proportion of pedestrians who estimated that vehicles were traveling faster than the speed limit at the same intersection increased from 60 percent before the intervention to 71.4 percent after.

The greatest improvements were observed at the intersection of a local street and a main road, rather than at the intersection of two main roads, because it is easier to change a local street (eg remove a traffic lane) than an arterial.

“Now we can go back to the cities and tell them: take out lanes, ban right turns on red lights, it's not that expensive,” Cloutier said. “The idea of ​​the project is ultimately to have examples, data on what works and what doesn't (improve pedestrian safety).”

Making pedestrians feel safer also increases people's willingness to walk, he added.

“If we're waiting for a big project to make a 100 percent improvement,” Cloutier said, “we could be depriving ourselves of cheaper improvements.” “If we make small improvements at every intersection, the entire journey will be safer.”

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