Raise the Hammer

In a strictly legal "litigation minimization" sense, Terry is probably right.

If the City can show in court that it is following standard engineering practices and Ministry guidelines in its road designs, then they could like mount a successful defence of any court challenge. The only problem would arise if the prosecution could show that there was something about the particular road design that is obviously unsafe and not meeting normal provincial standards.

However, there is a difference between protecting yourself from lawsuits, and ensuring that the roads actually are safe. And there is a lot of lee-way in how the roads are designed: a minimum sidewalk with of 1.5m may just be legal on Main and Queen, but it is obviously unsafe. Having no pedestrian crossings for several blocks at a stretch on busy multi-lane downtown streets might not be against code, but it is also unsafe for pedestrians.

And there are many practices that could be criticized as not following best practice (e.g. all the non-controlled slip road turns, the very narrow sidewalks and the neglect of painted stop bars at intersections), but City lawyers are presumably confident that a conviction would be unlikely.

But what we are talking about here is not whether the City has a good defence case in the case of being sued or even who is to blame when a pedestrian is injured, maimed or killed. We are demanding that the infrastructure be made safer because it is demonstrably more dangerous than in other cities, and we actually do know how to make it safer.

Our streets reliably injure and kill far more pedestrians every year than those of most other Ontario cities. And even one death or serious injury is unacceptable and should not be brushed off as inevitable.

And surely Terry has noticed that most other Ontario cities do not look like Hamilton's downtown: full of multi-lane one way streets with highway style slip road turns. It is the sheer dominance of this highway style road design that make Hamilton unique, even if the individual designs themselves are technically following the code.

And remember that in Ontario the code and HTA themselves were designed to prioritize the safety and convenience of motorists over those of pedestrians. The strong message of the Coroner's report on pedestrian deaths is that road design standards in Ontario must change.

Maybe Hamilton could be a leader in safe road design! It might even help us become "the best place to raise a child" (without getting maimed or killed on their neighbourhood streets).

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2014-03-31 14:10:44