TABLE OF CONTENTS Video Summary Related Content Video
TABLE OF CONTENTS Video Summary & Related Content Video Review Before Viewing While Viewing Talk Prompts After Viewing The Story Activity #1: Fast Fixes Activity #2: Exploring Vision Zero Sources 3 4 5 5 8 12 14 17 20 23 CREDITS News in Review is produced by CBC NEWS and curio. ca GUIDE Writer/Editor: Sean Dolan Additional editing: Michaël Elbaz VIDEO Host: Michael Serapio Senior Producer: Jordanna Lake Packaging Producer: Marie-Hélène Savard Associate Producer: Francine Laprotte Supervising Manager: Laraine Bone Visit www. curio. ca/newsinreview for an archive of all previous News In Review seasons. As a companion resource, go to www. cbc. ca/news for additional articles. CBC authorizes reproduction of material contained in this guide for educational purposes. Please identify source. News In Review is distributed by: curio. ca | CBC Media Solutions © 2018 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
VISION ZERO: Making City Roads Safer Video duration – 16: 00 City roads are designed for vehicles. But the modern cultural push for pedestrian-friendly cities and increased bike paths means there’s a war raging on the streets. Unfortunately, pedestrian and bicycle fatalities are on the rise. In an effort to combat this, many cities have adopted a road safety program called Vision Zero. Launched in Sweden, this program helps marry pedestrians, bikes and automobiles. The program puts emphasis on safety design and system controls. Steven D’Souza takes us to New York where they’ve been integrating the program with much success for the past four years. And we look at the problems plaguing Canada’s most populous city as it tries to ensure the safety of all road users. RELATED CONTENT • • • News in Review, October 2014 – Distracted Drivers: License to Kill News in Review, December 2008 – Cell Phones and Drivers News in Review, October 2008 – Commuters, Cars and Bicycles Students use math to make street crossing safer View. Point | Self-driving cars and moral dilemmas curio. ca/newsinreview /3
VIDEO REVIEW curio. ca/newsinreview /4
BEFORE VIEWING Did you know that, under Canadian law, a driver who fails to observe a yield to pedestrian sign and strikes and kills someone could receive a minimum punishment of a $151 fine? What does this tell you about how our country views the responsibilities of drivers? What does it say about how much we value the lives of pedestrians? WHILE VIEWING 1. “Vision Zero” is a safety program designed to eliminate road fatalities. The program originated in: a) Canada b) The United States of America c) England d) Sweden Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer curio. ca/newsinreview /5
2. Complete this sentence: Queens Boulevard in New York City… a) …continues to be the so-called “Boulevard of Death” in New York City. b) …has become the poster child for the Vision Zero program in North America. c) …has been re-designed into a vehicle only roadway. 3. The CBC analyzed Toronto traffic data and discovered that, after a decline in the issuing of traffic tickets, pedestrian and cyclist deaths went down. TRUE or FALSE? 4. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio went against a Queens Community Board vote that opted for parking over bike lanes. TRUE or FALSE? 5. Toronto’s version of Vision Zero came under fire in spring 2018, when: a) Politicians opted to scrap the plan b) Doug Ford won the provincial election c) Three cyclists and 17 pedestrians were killed on city roads d) Infrastructure spending was frozen by a struggling city government Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer curio. ca/newsinreview /6
6. Toronto’s annual Vision Zero price tag is currently at: a) $80 million b) $800 million c) $1. 7 billion d) $17 million 7. Toronto plans on copying New York’s adoption of head start crossings (that gives pedestrians a jump on vehicles) at over 80 intersections across the city. TRUE or FALSE? Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer curio. ca/newsinreview /7
TALK PROMPTS NEW curio. ca/newsinreview /8
TALK PROMPT #1 Consider pausing the video and giving students the opportunity to talk to an elbow partner for a few minutes or use these questions as part of a class discussion. Pause the video after CBC reporter Steven D’Souza says, “Take the engineering behind crosswalks like this. The priority is the safety of those on foot. Pedestrians get the green light first and a head start on turning cars, ” @ 00: 00 – 03: 21 1. How did Queens Boulevard change its reputation away from being referred to as the “boulevard of death”? 2. What do you think of giving pedestrians a head start on turning cars at intersections? Have you ever experienced an incident where a car nearly hit or actually hit you or a friend at a local intersection? Describe what took place and how you felt after the incident. Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer curio. ca/newsinreview /9
TALK PROMPT #2 Pause the video after Steven D’Souza signs off from his report, @ 03: 22 – 08: 10 1. What do you think of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to go against the Queens Community Board and authorize bike lanes over parking spots? 2. Do you think the huge $1. 7 billion price tag for New York’s Vision Zero is worth it? TALK PROMPT #3 Pause the video after Makda Ghebreslassie’s report, @ 08: 11 – 10: 32 1. What problems did Brian Patterson find at the intersection filmed in the report? Do you think reducing the speed limit will help save lives on Toronto’s streets? Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer curio. ca/newsinreview / 10
TALK PROMPT #4 Pause the video after Adrian Cheung’s report, @ 10: 33 – 13: 07 1. What does Mike Hoye think of Vision Zero? Using examples from the video, explain why he feels the way he does. 2. What improvements would Hoye like to see to make the streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians TALK PROMPT #5 Play the video until the end, @ 13: 07 – 16: 00 1. Since the research shows that collisions between pedestrians and motorists drops by 60 per cent when the person walking is given a five-second head start, why not make the adoption of this idea mandatory across Canada and not just in Vision Zero municipalities? 2. What would stop municipalities from adopting this strategy? Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer curio. ca/newsinreview / 11
AFTER VIEWING According to Transport Canada, vehicle crashes cost Canadians $63 billion a year in emergency response and health care services. Meanwhile installing rumble strips and road painting in pedestrian heavy areas cost a fraction of this amount and have proven effective in reducing traffic fatalities. Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer Why do you think governments are so reluctant to choose simple road safety measures when their budgets show the excessive cost of responding to traffic accidents? ? curio. ca/newsinreview / 12
There's no reason to accept that it's the cost of doing business or the status quo — the fact that people are going to get hit and killed or injured in traffic. [Vision Zero] is a way of realizing that …while we can never completely eliminate people making mistakes, we can make sure that those mistakes don't have catastrophic consequences. – Julia Kite, NYC Department of Transportation
THE STORY Over 2 000 people are killed and nearly 160 000 are injured on Canada’s roads every year. These devastating statistics are prompting city and town planners to introduce initiatives that seek to bring peaceful coexistence between vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians. Many of Canada’s largest urban centres are embracing an allencompassing plan called Vision Zero. According to proponents of the safety plan, implemented correctly, road deaths could be reduced to zero. A pedestrian is five to eight times more likely to be killed by a vehicle at 50 km/hr versus a car travelling at 30 km/hr. While some believe these ideals are utopian and naïve, Vision Zero advocates argue that this should be seen as a Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer natural, intuitive response to the shocking violence occurring on Canada’s roadways. They claim that there a number of simple strategies that could be taken to bring immediate results: curio. ca/newsinreview / 14
• Lower the speed limit • Separate vehicles from pedestrians and cyclists with dedicated sidewalks and bike lanes • Give pedestrians a head start on cars in intersections • Install speed bumps and rumble strips on roads to slow vehicles down • Make safety features — like rear and side view cameras and blind spot sensors — mandatory on all vehicles These changes would represent a few straightforward measures that would save lives almost immediately. Here’s the problem: many people who drive vehicles don’t want to face slower travel times, navigate more crowded roads, or pay more for their vehicles because of government mandated safety features. They believe that Vision Zero poses a major disruption to traffic flow and that pedestrians, cyclists and drivers just need to pay more Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer Distracted motorists and pedestrians continue to play a major role in the number of accidents across Canada. The main culprit — smartphones. It is interesting to note that, in 2011, traffic accidents dropped 40 per cent over a two-week period in Abu Dhabi when Black. Berry smartphone services were down. curio. ca/newsinreview / 15
attention to what they are doing when they are on or near the road. While Vision Zero advocates believe that road deaths could be reduced to nil, opponents of the project believe that lofty goals like zero deaths have a nice political ring to them but are impossible to accomplish. Toronto, city council has approved more spending on road safety actions and, even though aspects of their Vision Zero plan are unpopular, they continue to implement strategies in an effort to slow vehicles down and give cyclists and pedestrians more room to manoeuver. Despite vocal (and influential) opposition, Canadian cities like Montreal, Hamilton, Edmonton and Vancouver have each embraced their own version of the Vision Zero approach. In TO CONSIDER 2. What is the goal of Vision Zero? 3. Why do some people oppose Vision Zero? 4. What changes would you suggest for saving lives on Canada’s roadways? 1. What factors can you identify that create unsafe conditions for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians? Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer curio. ca/newsinreview / 16
ACTIVITY #1: Fast Fixes Every year almost 400 pedestrians are killed on Canadian streets. Take a look at the road safety tips on the following two pages, from No Accident: Eliminating Injury and Death on Canadian Roads by Neil Arason, and then complete the activity. STEP 1: Your thoughts On a sheet of paper, record your thoughts on each of Arason’s road safety recommendations. STEP 2: Your parent/guardian or sibling’s perspective Take Arason’s road safety recommendations home and review them with your parent, guardian or an older brother or sister who drives. Note their reactions to each recommendation, being careful not to reveal your thoughts and feelings while they are speaking. Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer STEP 3: Compare reactions Finally, compare your reactions to the safety recommendations with the ones you gathered from you parent, guardian or sibling. How are they similar? How are they different? Share your comparison with your parent, guardian or sibling. Be prepared to share your insights in a class discussion when you return to class. curio. ca/newsinreview / 17
Fast fixes on the path to zero traffic fatalities 1. Speed cameras placed on traffic lights. These would catch people who run amber and red lights and people who speed through intersections. 2. Reduce speed limits to 30 km/hr in residential areas. 3. Give pedestrians a six second head start on vehicles at intersections with traffic signals. 4. Build pedestrian traffic islands for people to stand on in case they fail to completely cross an intersection in the allotted time given by a traffic light. 5. Use the pedestrian scramble at busy intersections. This allows pedestrians to cross in any direction for a period of time. Next, cars, trucks and bikes get their turn. This means that pedestrians and vehicles never cross an intersection at the same time. Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer 6. Have automakers build a 10 cm soft bumper in front of the engine block to lessen the likelihood of serious injury or death when vehicles strike pedestrians and cyclists. curio. ca/newsinreview / 18
7. Design car hoods so that pedestrians land on the hood instead of on the roadway when they are accidentally struck by a vehicle. 8. Use bright yellow or white road paint to clearly indicate bike lanes and pedestrian walkways that intersect with cars and trucks. 9. Install rumble strips on roads to indicate a need to slow down in busy areas. Municipalities could also install anti-skid road surfaces so that cars can stop more easily. Source: Paraphrased from the article “The cure for killer cars” by Brian Bethune, Maclean’s (June 2014). Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer curio. ca/newsinreview / 19
ACTIVITY #2: Exploring Vision Zero started in Sweden in 1997 when activists were able to convince lawmakers and planners that too many people were dying on the nation’s roadways. Their premise: shift the system away from reacting to incidents of road death (mostly the result of human error) and focus on designing roadways, bike paths and sidewalks that prevent deaths. In fact, Vision Zero advocates dubbed their project by its distinct name because they believe that no one should be dying on or around roadways. Since introducing Vision Zero, Sweden has managed to reduce its road death total from seven for every 100 000 to less than three for every 100 000. This has inspired municipalities across Canada and around the world to adopt the core principles of the program and begin Vision Zero campaigns of their own. Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer Traditional Thinking / Vision Zero Thinking To understand how Vision Zero works, we can compare traditional thinking with the basic concepts behind Vision Zero. Consult the following chart and complete the question on the following page: curio. ca/newsinreview / 20
Traditional thinking Vision Zero thinking Gather data on collision rates Concentrate on preventing fatalities and serious injuries Find the human error (like impaired or distracted driving) that causes collisions Find the flaws in road design and determine the role they play in road deaths Encourage humans to behave as perfectly as possible on the road Perfect the road system (factoring in human error) to prevent road deaths Safety initiatives, while admirable, cost too much money to implement Safety initiatives are cheaper than emergency response and long-term healthcare costs What is the primary difference between the traditional approach and the Vision Zero approach? Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer curio. ca/newsinreview / 21
Considering road design The larger question Vision Zero Canada encourages people to shift their mindset. They developed a graphic that says: 1. Go to Vision Zero Canada’s website and research ways that road safety could be improved. You might also want to investigate local safety initiatives being pursued in your own community. 1958 – Look twice before you cross the road. 2018 – Think twice before you build a road. From a Vision Zero perspective, current road system design favours motor vehicles far too much. This puts pedestrians at great risk, a point that is captured by cartoonist Karl Jilg in this image: www. treehugger. com/ urbandesign/how-it-feels-be-pedestrian-citiestoday. html 2. Working in a small group, come up with six (6) safety ideas that would save lives on Canadian roads. Focus on everything from road design to speed limits to traffic enforcement. What does the cartoon teach you about the need for improved road design? Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer curio. ca/newsinreview / 22
SOURCES Alter, L. (December 17, 2014). How it feels to be a pedestrian in cities today. Tree. Hugger. Retrieved from: www. treehugger. com/urban-design/how-it-feels-be-pedestrian-cities-today. html Banares, I. (September 7, 2018). Doctors Group launches road safety campaign, proposes bike lane extension. Toronto Star. Retrieved from: www. thestar. com/news/gta/2018/09/06/doctors-group-launches-road-safety-campaign-proposes-bike-laneextension. html Bethune, B. (June 16, 2014). The cure for killer cars. Maclean’s. Retrieved from: www. macleans. ca/news/canada/the-cure-for-killercars/ Solomon, L. (December 1, 2017). Ban the bike! How cities made a huge mistake in promoting cycling. Financial Post. Retrieved from: https: //business. financialpost. com/opinion/lawrence-solomon-ban-the-bike-how-cities-made-a-huge-mistake-in-promoting-cycling Vision Zero Canada: www. visionzero. ca Vision Zero: Making City Roads Safer curio. ca/newsinreview / 23
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