Waterloo reviews most collision-prone areas to improve safety

The City of Waterloo is trying to make its roads safer by putting together a report on some of the locations with the most crashes in the past five years.

The City of Waterloo is trying to make its roads safer by putting together a report on some of the locations with the most crashes in the past five years.

In February, council approved plans to conduct an annual report to examine Traffic Calming Policy and Road Safety Countermeasures and to find ways to update and enhance the city’s road safety.

According to the report, there was a total of 2,837 crashes on city roads in the past five years. 66 of those involved pedestrians being hit, including one fatal crash in 2019, as well as 53 crashes with cyclists.

In the five years studied, the number of crashes peaked in 2019, with a total of 725 recorded incident. However, the number of crashes dropped during the pandemic as more drivers were working from home and people were generally travelling less. A total of 517 crashes were recorded in 2022, dropping to 424 last year.

Staff used collision records to put together the top locations in need of calming measures. The report tries to determine factors contributing to crashes and determine countermeasures that have proven most effective for each scenario.

The report will be presented to council at a meeting on Monday.

Staff recommend council receive the report and update the Traffic and Parking bylaw to match the recommended changes.