Who's safe on Hamilton streets? Recent crashes involving pedestrians highlight work to be done

As the city takes public input on its complete streets manual, advocates say the "urgent situation" of pedestrian safety in a car-focused city needs to be addressed quickly, following two serious collisions between vehicles and elderly pedestrians over the past two weeks.

"People are literally losing their lives on the street," says Brody Robinmeyer, project manager of Friendly Streets for Black, Indigenous and Racialized Communities at Environment Hamilton. "Hearing about these accidents with elderly people, and people with mobility issues, I believe it's an urgent situation."

On Saturday, a man in his seventies was in critical condition after being hit by a vehicle while crossing the street near Upper James and Fennell Avenue. Last week, a hit-and-run driver killed a 70-year-old man and his dog on Lawrence Road, east of the Red Hill Valley Parkway. 

The recent collisions are the latest of others involving older pedestrians on Hamilton's roads. 

Robinmeyer says he's heard from older and disabled people whose ability to move around the city is stifled by fears for their safety while doing things that should be routine, such as crossing the street.

He says those concerns are exacerbated in winter by the lack of adequate snow clearing on sidewalks and crosswalks, adding the sheer number of people with mobility challenges of various kinds should be enough to make pedestrian safety more of a priority.

"A significant amount of our fellows are experiencing this," he told CBC Hamilton. "There's an awful lot of focus, and space, given towards automotive users."

His organization hopes to help the city identify unsafe places for pedestrians with its Friendly Streets reporting tool, which asks citizens to crowd-source areas in their neighbourhood that could use safety upgrades, such as bump-outs, crosswalks or new stop signs.

"The hope is that if we have it all in one place, we have [potential solutions] to share," he said.

CBC Hamilton was unable to get pedestrian fatality statistics for 2021 from Hamilton police or the city. The City of Hamilton's 2020 collision report says there were four pedestrians killed that year, out of 192 collisions between vehicles and people on foot.

The report says that "in 25.8 per cent of pedestrian collisions at midblocks [non-intersection locations], pedestrians were walking on road shoulders or sidewalks. This observation can potentially be used to add or improve sidewalks."

The report also said pedestrians crossing where there is no crosswalk is a significant factor in collisions.

More crosswalks, bike lanes and safety buffers between traffic and pedestrians appear to be in Hamilton's future, with new street templates currently being developed by the city's planning department meant to "shift away from traditional design that prioritizes the movement of motor vehicles," according to the city's website.

Set to come before council in the spring, the city's Complete, Livable, Better Streets Design Manual will provide guidelines that "encourage designs that better balance considerations for the different transportation modes that share streets [and] focus on enhancing road safety.