‘The streets are scary’: Will a deadly year on Hamilton streets drive your vote?

Previously innocuous neighbourhood noises now frighten Jodi Pollington more than the admittedly scary crash statistics in a record year for pedestrian deaths in Hamilton.

The wail of ambulance or police sirens. The screech of an abruptly braking vehicle. The revving engine of a speeding car or truck on Parkdale Avenue.

All are now linked to the memory-searing image of her 14-year-old daughter and hero," Phoenix Gureckas, lying in a hospital bed with a skull fracture, two broken legs and a broken arm.

The teenager is up and walking again nearly six months after she was struck by a minivan while rushing to push her six-year-old brother out of danger at the intersection of Parkdale and Roxborough Avenue. (Police say the 30-year-old van driver fled the scene and was later charged in the alleged hit-and-run.)

If she has to walk (to school) by herself, she does get kind of anxious, because she has to cross that same corner where she was hit," said Pollington this month.

But I think it bothers me more than it bothers her ... The other day I panicked because I heard a bunch of sirens and she was supposed to be on her way home from school and I couldn't reach her."

The protective mom now says the streets are scary" for her kids, particularly due to speeding.

With a municipal vote just around the corner, Pollington said she is hoping a new council will adopt more immediate" and visible measures to stop chronic speeding - like new photo radar cameras, for example.

I know they are talking about traffic safety, which is good," she said. But I would like to see cameras or some other actual proof that (enforcement) is happening."

Hamilton's worst year in a decade for pedestrian deaths has already spurred big changes - and in an election year, plenty of promises.

The highest-profile city commitment to road safety - which a new council will have to see through, or not - came in a historic vote to reverse 56 years of one-way traffic on collision-prone Main Street, the widest main drag in Ontario.

By the time that vote happened in May, nine people had already died in crashes while standing on the sidewalk - like three workers in the Delta - or just walking in a neighbourhood, like beloved maestro Boris Brott. The number of police-identified pedestrian deaths has since grown to 11, including two workplace incidents involving vehicles, and cyclist Brian Woods was struck and killed while biking on Upper Wentworth Street over the Linc.

There have also been several outrage-inducing crashes involving kids, like Phoenix. A 14-year-old girl was struck at the corner of notoriously crash-prone Dundurn and Main Street. A 12-year-old boy was also hospitalized after a car crash sent one vehicle spinning into a bus shelter in Stoney Creek.

Amid rising voter anger, other long-term road safety changes have been promised.

For example, council adopted a new map of legal truck routes that is supposed to redirect the biggest transports out of the core as much as possible - although the bylaw likely won't go into force before spring of next year. The city also endorsed a new complete streets" policy that - over the long haul - is supposed to make new and rebuilt roads safer for all users.

Would-be Hamilton politicians seem to know residents want more, however. For example:

• Some council candidates are pitching complete street" safety audits of particular wards and neighbourhoods. Many have pledged to explore adding more traffic calming measures like speed bumps or intersection bump-outs; others have pointed to the need for more protected bike lanes.

• Mayoral candidate Keanin Loomis has backed the two-way conversion of Main Street, called for more separated bike lanes and proposes hiring a third-party evaluator to keep the city's Vision Zero" road safety campaign on track.

• Mayoral candidate Andrea Horwath is also a fan of two-waying Main and a Vision Zero advocate, pointing to the need for more pedestrian crossovers and community safety zones. She is championing a roundabout on Hwy. 52.

• Mayoral candidate Bob Bratina does not believe wide, one-way Main Street is unsafe, but he has talked about the importance of more police enforcement to prevent collisions and crack down on unsafe drivers.

The Spectator asked all council and mayoral candidates what they would do to improve street safety. You can see those responses on our municipal election page under the heading Meet Your Hamilton City Council Candidates."

If you're talking to candidates or wondering what to ask about road safety in the lead up to Monday's vote, here are some issues to consider:

Speed cameras

Hamilton test-drove photo radar cameras at 18 speeding-prone street locations last year - and council made the automated speed enforcement (ASE) program permanent this year.

But we only have two roving photo radar cameras to work with. Toronto, by comparison, can have 50 ASE units on the street at any time.

The city has said adding more cameras to the arsenal now would be a budget-buster - in part due to provincial court backlogs and the cost of processing images and dealing with enforcement. Unless a new council decides otherwise, it may be 2025 before more automatic eyes are considered for city streets.

One-way or another way?

The past council voted to work on a plan to convert one-way Main Street to two-way traffic, but staff have yet to report back on how and when that might happen.

The next council will have to grapple with challenges related to a provincial interchange in the west end as well as the potential for conflict with a LRT project that is supposed to start, in theory, on parallel King Street in 2024.

City traffic experts were also asked to report back on whether or when to convert more one-way arteries in the lower city back to two-way traffic. Ask your candidates which way' they will vote.

Red Hill Valley Parkway safety

Hamilton fast-tracked repaving of the collision-prone parkway and cut the speed limit in 2019 after the discovery of a troubling roadway friction report that was inexplicably buried for years. Followup tests showed markedly better road friction.

But is that the end of safety improvements on the parkway? Leony Hastings hopes not.

Her 19-year-old stepdaughter, Jordyn, died alongside best friend Olivia Smosarski in a tragic crossover crash on the parkway in 2015. Ahead of election day, Hastings said via email she believed the new asphalt has improved parkway safety - but more could be done.

We still believe it would be prudent to properly research the risks and benefits of adding (median) barriers in high accident sections of the (parkway) and the (Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway), to prevent cross-over collisions," she said. Even with the roadway being repaved, barriers would provide a safety net, since the RHVP is downbound with many curves."

In years past, city staff suggested more lighting on the parkway was impossible for environmental reasons and that median barriers were too costly and of dubious value.

Through the ongoing Red Hill judicial inquiry, however, we've learned past consultants recommended the city look at adding median barriers in strategic locations. More lighting was also found to be warranted end-to-end on the parkway.

So far, any major changes to lighting or barriers appear to be on hold while the city studies a still-theoretical future widening of the roadway.

Neighbourhood street safety

The city voted in 2019 to cut default speed limits to 40 kilometres an hour on all residential streets within neighbourhoods.

Why? Ontario's coroner recommended cutting the default speed limit to 40 from 50 km/h a decade ago, noting pedestrians struck at the higher speed are twice as likely to die. COVID and shifting priorities have slowed the pace of the switchover in Hamilton, so only 123 of 212 neighbourhoods have seen the speed limit change so far.

The city is also working on, or has largely completed, so-called complete street' reviews of neighbourhoods in Wards 8, 14 and 3, plus a neighbourhood-specific study in Beasley in Ward 2.

Those reviews are meant to provide a comprehensive look at neighbourhood safety improvements, rather than changes on an ad hoc basis. Some would-be councillors are promising such reviews - what do your ward candidates say?

Matthew Van Dongen is a transportation and environment reporter at The Spectator. mvandongen@thespec.com