Rise in fatal pedestrian crashes in Calgary highlights need for safer streets

A series of serious, and in some times fatal, incidents on Calgary’s roads are shining a spotlight on initiatives to improve streets around the city.

Calgarians were shocked late last month when a speeding truck hit a sedan in the southeast, killing a man and his seven-year-old daughter, and injuring an 11-year-old girl as well.

A couple of days later, there were several crashes that left six people hurt. This included two pedestrians being hit in a downtown crosswalk by a driver fleeing a previous hit and run.

“This has been a deadly and dangerous week for Calgary motorists,” said Sgt. Colin Foster of the collision reconstruction unit in a release following the incidents. “Please slow down, drive with care, and do not drive impaired.”

Earlier in the year, another incident claimed the life of a man who was waiting to cross Macleod Trail near Chinook Mall. His girlfriend and her daughter were also hurt.

While statistics show the rate of fatal crashes between vehicles is similar to past years, the number of incidents that have killed pedestrians are on the rise.

Calgary police statistics show there have been 16 fatal collisions on the streets so far this year, eight of which have involved pedestrians. The last time so many pedestrians were killed was in 2018.

“That is a trend we are concerned about,” said Deputy Chief Chad Tawfik during a Calgary Police Commission meeting this week.

According to a bot on Twitter that tracks how many times the city tweets about pedestrian-involved collisions, there have been more than 170 such incidents this year.

Lowering speed limits

Tawfik said the police are assisting in a couple of ways. Measures include increasing check stops to nab impaired drivers during the holidays and continuing work with the city to achieve fewer deaths on the roads, he said.

“Our traffic section is well-connected with the City of Calgary Traffic Management and Roads, in fact they are contributing and participating in the safer mobility plan,” he explained.

This fits with an overall policy the city has been working on, tied to an international movement called Vision Zero.

“What Vision Zero suggests is that the automobile is a massive killer of human beings,” said Ward 9 Councillor Gian-Carlo Carra.

Carra is committed to working towards designing safer streets around Calgary, and says that starts with lowering speed limits.

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“What we now realize that speed kills,” he said. “It’s not a question of whether you get into an accident, it’s just a question of when. And the faster you’re going, the higher the chances are that you’re going to have an accident on any given day, and the faster you’re going, the more deadly and damaging that accident is going to be.”

He said this is why they have moved away from just controlling volume on city streets, such as moving away from building more cul-de-sacs, and instead putting the focus on speed control.

The previous city council resolved to lower speed limits on many residential roads to 40 km/h, as there was also some discussion on possibly cutting them down further to 30 km/h in the future.

Studies show that people who are hit by a car driven at 80km/h have a 75 per cent chance of dying. But that risk goes down to only seven per cent at 30 km/h.

Even south of the border, the National Transportation Safety Board is recommending American cities reconsider speed limits in the name of pedestrian safety. The National Association of City Transportation Officials also includes Calgary as an international member city, among dozens of other cities looking to revamp street design.

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This type of work then falls on the laps of people like Joanna Domarad, a traffic safety leader with the city, who continually try to update policies that keep people safe.

“Our goal and our long term vision is to have a transportation network free of fatalities and major injuries,” Domarad said. “We are continuously working to improve our standards and design guidelines to reflect best practices, and change what we will be building in the future.”

Domarad said they have also installed more flashing lights at crosswalks to keep drivers away of somebody wanting to cross the road, and also look for countermeasures that can help stop further incidents.

She added they also work closely with other agencies and look at better practices around the world to gain more insight.

Carra said there was pushback from some councillors when they decided to lower speed limits, with some claiming it would turn all of Calgary into a playground zone and Ward 4’s Sean Chu likening it to a “gateway drug” as part of an overall war on cars.

“As far as I know, Calgary is not a parking lot and it’s still one of the best cities in the world to be a driver. So this is not a war on cars, this is a sensible evolution in city-building in response to a real problem that we’re ignoring,” Carra said.

‘Human beings are human beings. We’re fallible and we’re interacting with a very flawed system’

There were far more fatal car crashes in 2020 — 24 by the year’s end — and that could possibly be attributed to fewer cars being on the road and drivers feeling more comfortable going at higher speeds.

“It’s literally what we know about driving. It’s not about driver education, it’s not about enforcement. Human beings are human beings. We’re fallible and we’re interacting with a very flawed system,” Carra said.

It will take a lot more work to get Calgary to the point where there is less risk posed to pedestrians, and the problem is not immediately solved by lowering the limits on groups of residential roads.

Already, construction happens through the year on revamping some intersections as well as changing parking habits in a way to reduce speeds.

“Big bump outs on the curbs so that the crossing distance for pedestrians is much shorter, and when your intersections get throated down and become tighter people just drive at a much more rational speed,” said Carra. “We’re also introducing angle parking to support the local businesses and also to slow down the traffic.”

For the city, there’s a sense that this is of utmost importance.

“This is a top priority for us,” said Domarad. “We want to make the transportation network as safe as we can for Calgarians to make sure everyone gets home safely at the end of the day.”

However, Carra said the city has to be prepared to spend a lot of money and time on improving the situation. He believes it will require a lot of commitment from the current and future members of Calgary City Council.

“It took us seven or eight decades to build one of the most robust per capita road systems in the world in Calgary. It’s going to take us eight or so decades to convert that road system to something that is less of an engine of death.”