Complete street plan could help to reduce fatalities

Streets designed to take every mode of transportation into account – dubbed complete streets – are safer for the drivers, cyclists and pedestrians travelling on them, Toronto critical injury lawyer Patrick Brown says in Law Times.

In the article, Brown discusses the 2012 cycling death review and the 2012 pedestrian death review, and the coroner’s office move to call for the adoption of complete streets.

“The complete streets concept has been around for a while,” Brown says in Law Times.

“It has been adopted in various jurisdictions in the U.S. Put simply, it provides that anyone involved in the construction, building, maintenance or design of any type of roads provide equal access and equal consideration for all users, especially in urban centres. Complete streets are designed to give cyclists and pedestrians their own space so they can avoid contact.”

Accident review

The cycling death review examined all of the 129 accidental cycling deaths that occurred in Ontario between Jan. 1, 2006, and Dec. 31, 2010, the article says, while the pedestrian death review examined 95 cases of preventable pedestrian collisions in 2010, including the 23 deaths that occurred in January of that year.

The Ministry of Transportation is currently in the process of developing a cycling strategy and is moving forward with implementing the coroner’s recommendations, the report says.

“We are hoping for a complete streets policy statement directing the road authorities to adopt the concept,” Brown, partner with McLeish Orlando LLP, says in the article.

“There is no doubt in my mind that if they do, we will have the safest roads in North America and a substantial reduction in fatalities.”