THE RISE AND SPRAWL

Within the course of five minutes this morning, I was almost hit by a car twice.

The first incident occured as I crossed Kennedy Street on the north side of Graham Avenue (with the walk sign and green light). A car travelled south on Kennedy and began coasting into a turn west on Graham, but the driver saw me and slammed on his brakes before turning. He gave me an apologetic wave, and I shook my head and smiled nervously as I walked on.

The second incident occurred as I crossed Memorial on the south side of Portage Avenue (again, with the walk sign and green light). This car was travelling east on Portage and began turning south on Memorial, using the curved exit lane. Because of the much wider turning radius of this kind of exit lane, and because this vehicle was exiting the wide Portage Avenue, she was traveling at a much greater speed than the first car on Kennedy Street. Even if the driver were to slam on her brakes, it would have been impossible for her to stop in time, at the speed the car was travelling. She raced through, looking at me in angry disbelief from her side window, and I yelled and kicked her car (which was a few inches away).

The lesson here could be that some drivers are more stupid than others, or more distracted than others at a given moment. Sure. But it could also be that some kinds of roads are more dangerous for pedestrians than others. The car travelling on Kennedy was able to stop in time because it had to slow down for a 90 degree turn anyway. The car turning off Portage Avenue couldn’t because the greatly increased radius of the exit lane allowed it to travel at a greater speed.(This page explains this more clearly than I can.)

The corner of Graham and Kennedy is traditional urbanism. The SW corner of Portage and Memorial is traffic engineering’s attempts at speeding up the flow of traffic headed south on Memorial/Osborne, and to reduce congestion on Portage Avenue. Pedestrian safety—to say nothing of pedestrian quality, storefront commerce, or the actual cost of their schemes—do not enter their equations; only traffic speed and volume do, as well as how to allow drivers to remain as onconscious behind the wheel as possible.

Because traffic engineers have been unable to think of streets as anything but a simple matter of speed and volume, busy city streets are rendered into simple traffic arteries. The pedestrian experience becomes so degrading that most give up and head for the skywalks. Those few poor souls that bother get nearly mowed down by idiots who grew up in a city where streets are not things to be shared (even when there is a yeild sign). 

Central Winnipeg has many of these channelled exit lanes with large turning radii: NW Higgins and Main; NW River and Osborne; SE Main and York; SW Portage and St. Mary; SW Selkirk and Salter; and the worst of them all, SE Main and Disraeli. Until these corners are rebuilt, central Winnipeg is going to be a long way away from having truly walkable (or “complete”) communities.