City to make school environs safer
The city has a plan to make the road environs of 24 schools safer in terms of traffic, with wider sidewalks and better traffic lights. No doubt critics will simply see this as another indication that Valérie Plante “hates cars.”
CBC says “Since 2017, more than 80 children have been struck and killed by cars near their schools in Montreal.” Can this be true? Eighty kids killed?
Blork 11:06 on 2020-09-04 Permalink
There’s no way that’s true. 80 kids killed in three years? No way.
Kevin 11:08 on 2020-09-04 Permalink
There is no fucking way 80 kids have been struck and killed by cars in Montreal in the past three years.
We’ve only had 88 deaths in Montreal in that time frame.
The SAAQ tracks this by region, by age group, by whether they were in a car or walking or on a bicycle.
In the entire province we’ve had just over 70 pedestrian deaths each year since 2017. (It was 44 to 60 from 2014 to 2017).
Since 2014 there have been anywhere from 314 to 362 deaths per year on all roads in Quebec — whether people in a car, on a bike, whatever.
The SAAQ also provides deaths by age group in their annual statistics.
0-14: 16 in 2017, 7 in 2018, 10 in 2019.
15-24 is where the number jumps: 78 in 2017, 47 in 2018, 44 in 2019 — which, again, includes all deaths in the entire province.
https://saaq.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/documents/publications/bilan-routier-2019.pdf
Spi 11:34 on 2020-09-04 Permalink
It’s wrong, CBC is citing the city of montreal press release which states: “Rappelons que depuis 2017, plus de 80 enfants ont été impliqués dans une collision dans un “environnement scolaire” sur le territoire de l’agglomération de Montréal.”
Incredibly poor journalism, (there is no equivalent english news release) they’ve since corrected their mistake.
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=5798,42657625&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&id=32973&ret=http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/url/page/prt_vdm_fr/rep_annonces_ville/rep_communiques/communiques
On the actual topic, they need to stop accomodating of driveby dropoffs. All these measures around the city to discourage car use and they can’t be bothered in the most obvious and impactful place to do it?
Kate 11:37 on 2020-09-04 Permalink
Spi, thanks. Indeed CBC have corrected their phrasing since I quoted them above.
Kevin 11:38 on 2020-09-04 Permalink
Spi
During the pandemic all schools are encouraging parents to drop their kids off in order to minimize exposure to Covid on buses.
Spi 11:50 on 2020-09-04 Permalink
@Kevin, we’re in the city, the vast majority of people could walk their kids to school if they found the time but they’d rather rush through their “busy” schedules. There was a news report last year about children documenting dangerous driving behaviour near their school, almost the entirety of it by parents dropping their kids off by car.
Kevin 12:09 on 2020-09-04 Permalink
Spi,
Why do you assume that everyone lives within walking distance of their school or their workplace?
My daughter’s school was a block away from my house — until the school expanded and it’s now 2.5 km away, and it’s nowhere near where I work or my wife works. And there’s no way she’s biking there because the roads between my home and the school are terrible. *I* won’t ride on them because they’re unsafe, even if there is a new bike lane most of the way.
walkerp 12:31 on 2020-09-04 Permalink
For many people, it is a choice. They just don’t realize it or refuse to make any changes that would benefit their fellows, the planet and most likely themselves.
Wearing a mask is a small example of much greater and worse changes we are all going to live through (and what is going to be way way worse for our children) if we don’t stop climate change.
Tim S. 12:53 on 2020-09-04 Permalink
On one hand, a lot of people who drive their kids to school could probably walk. On the other, those “busy” schedules aren’t filled with fun stuff, they’re an outcome of the fact that you need two full-time incomes to raise a family, and even that won’t get you far in the city these days. Much of our wasteful “convenience” society is a reflection of that. If we want to consume less, we need to give people more of their time back. (I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this the past few months, while trying to figure out sourdough starters and so on).
@ Kevin: I think we’re in the same boat. Having moved to be walking distance to a school, I just had to drive 6km, round trip, because my daughter forgot her lunch.