In my newsletter last week, I pointed to the work the City is doing to implement a protected intersection at Byron and Churchill. You can read more about that here. I’ve already received feedback opposing the change since the re-design would remove the northbound left turn lane from Byron to Churchill. Residents are concerned that this will delay vehicle travel through the intersection and that drivers will find alternate routes through the neighbourhood.
I’m nudged to write this after listening to Councillor Laine Johnson’s excellent CBC interview about the CAA’s recently-released study (media release with link to full study here) on intersections and near-misses across Canada and in her ward at the corner of Viewmount and Merivale. I heard her frustration at the lack of safe infrastructure investment through much of the city.
Our ward has seen major safety improvements along heavily-used corridors such as Byron and Scott, with new investments being made on Sherwood. Elsewhere in the city, though, that investment has been slow and at times non-existent.
Congestion in Ottawa, including in our ward, is not going away. We are focusing half the anticipated growth in Ottawa of hundreds of thousands of people in the next 20+ years in areas of the city that are already built up, close to great transit, and walkable. We can’t build new or wider roads in Kitchissippi, and travel by car will become more more challenging as residents outside our ward transit through it and residents of the ward move around it. People will need choices if we’re to avoid gridlock.
Today, the choice to walk around the neighbourhood can be daunting. I was struck by the CAA’s statistics with respect to how many “near-misses” are occurring where they did their studies across Canada. Every day, pedestrians and cyclists face very real risks. In 2023, 11 pedestrians were killed in Ottawa. We know from the new CAA data that 90% of the nearly 400,000 pedestrian-vehicle conflicts they observed occurred during turning movements.
But as Councillor Johnson told CBC, we don’t need AI tools to tell us what residents already know: I receive a steady stream of notes concerned about aggressive driver behaviour at intersections. Groups like the Hintonburg Community Association have for a couple of decades sounded the alarm on the scourge of near-misses that often doesn’t show up in road safety statistics. The CAA data using new technologies has proven them right.
Councillor Johnson makes the excellent point that as people read frequent headlines about cyclist and pedestrian deaths, they’re more likely to drive perceiving that to be the safer option. More cars means less safe streets, and the cycle is perpetuated.
Protected intersections like this one to be built at Churchill/Byron are one key way we can help keep people get around the neighbourhood more safely and more likely to move around in ways that don’t exacerbate congestion. There’s more we need to do, of course. We need more red-light and speed enforcement cameras and I’ve made those a focus of my budget asks. We need transit that works and that is convenient, affordable and reliable. Our sidewalks need to be well-maintained and clear of snow.
I’m fully supportive of the City’s proposal to make this intersection safer for everyone who travels through it. We’re fortunate that the level of development in Kitchissippi unlocks spending on the infrastructure to support that, but as I write this I’m reminded that every neighbourhood deserves the same.