Posted at 12:00 p.m
(Sherbrooke) She remembers the force of the impact. Then everything goes black.
Sarah (fictitious first name) crossed the Chemin Dion at the junction of Rue des Alouettes in Sherbrooke just before 7am on December 16 to get to her bus stop.
In order to be seen by motorists, the 47-year-old mother carried a tube illuminated with LED lights. “There are no sidewalks here and drivers often drive very fast, so I always have my red light tube with me for my safety,” she says.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Junction of Rue des Alouettes and Chemin Dion, a place without sidewalks where Sarah was hit by a motorist.
Sarah was almost across Dion Road when out of the corner of her eye she saw a motorist coming into the intersection. The driver didn’t stop and made a big turn straight towards them.
If he had stopped, he would have seen me.
Sarah
Sarah is one of four pedestrians hit by motorists in Sherbrooke in four months in late 2022. One of them, a 69-year-old man, died from his injuries after being hit by a minibus on the road.
The youngest victim, Byaunda Atewelemba, was 5 months old when the stroller she was in was hit head-on by the driver of a motor vehicle who failed to stop at the crosswalk her father was driving on Boulevard de Portland, a sloping street crossed axis of four to six lanes, intended exclusively for motorized traffic, located in a school corridor.
A lively and playful baby before the collision, Byaunda is now unable to hold up his head and his body is weak. The child has stopped laughing and smiling and is receiving special treatment, Radio-Canada has found. The driver, a 37-year-old man, is charged with dangerous driving.
Ariane Lafontaine, who organized a demonstration calling for the pedestrianization of Wellington Street in downtown Sherbrooke last summer, says she is saddened but not surprised by the series of clashes.
The infrastructures are not adapted to Sherbrooke. The streets are too wide, the crossing times at intersections too short for older people or people with restricted mobility. Drivers often try to turn when crossing, which makes us dangerous.
Ariane Lafontaine, General Councilor for the Environment of Estrie
Ms. Lafontaine, who is also responsible for the sustainable mobility project at the General Council for the Environment of Estrie, notes that her organization runs several campaigns to promote active mobility in schools.
“There is a desire for active transport, and more and more people are doing it, but more infrastructure is needed,” she says.
“spokes in the wheel” of active locomotion
Jolyane Arsenault, a citizen who walks to work, notes that Sherbrooke still has few road improvements that force motor vehicle drivers to respect pedestrian right-of-way, such as z and arteries, and reduce speed that accepted by drivers.
She cites the Saint-François bridge that spans the river of the same name near the Cégep de Sherbrooke. The bridge, which is temporarily closed for works, is ill-suited to the many people who walk there.
“Being grazed by car mirrors at high speed, getting splashed, walking across a bridge on a poorly cleared sidewalk is not pleasant,” says Ms. Arsenault.
Result: Many citizens of the largest city in the Eastern Townships also use the car for short distances. “It’s common for people to drive to the bike path,” she says.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
Jolyane Arsenault, who walks to work, and Fabien Burnotte, who does the same by bike, discuss on the Saint-François bridge.
Fabien Burnotte, a member of the Vélo Urbain Sherbrooke group and a veteran cyclist, notes that the cycle lanes in Sherbrooke have so far been designed primarily for recreational cyclists.
I drive four kilometers to work. That’s not much, but it’s unnecessarily dangerous, because the cycle paths are all fragmented and there isn’t a coherent network.
Fabien Burnotte
Mr Burnotte notes that elected officials are listening but that the changes appear to be deadlocking at the level of the municipal apparatus, which insists, for example, on cycle lanes being closed in winter and removing the bollards protecting cyclists. “More and more people are actively commuting, but we are blocked at every corner. »
broken knee
After regaining consciousness on the asphalt, Sarah, the mother who was apprehended on the morning of December 16, was taken to the hospital by ambulance. She learned that she was suffering from a bruise on her face and a broken right knee.
“I was lucky in my misfortune because the man was driving a car. If it had been an SUV, I don’t know what condition I would be in,” says Sarah, who wishes to remain anonymous so as not to have her name associated with this sad episode in her life.
Having operated on her knee, she spent five days in the hospital before returning home. In her recovery, she walks with a walker and needs medical assistance to get out of her house, which she finds difficult.
“I’m an active person. Now I can’t even go shopping. »
For years, Sarah and her neighbors have been asking the city for better neighborhood lighting and sidewalks. But so far nothing has happened.
“A lot of kids walk to school and it’s really unsafe,” she said.
A global strategy to share space better
The new city council of Sherbrooke, elected in 2021, is concerned about the issue of active road safety. Évelyne Beaudin, the young mayor, has promised to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
In Sherbrooke, the public road is not suitable for walking or cycling, admits Caroline Gravel, director of the city’s infrastructure department.
Engineer Caroline Gravel, director of Sherbrooke’s Department of Urban Infrastructure, notes that citizens are right to state that public roads are not suitable for walking or cycling.
“In Sherbrooke, like elsewhere in North America, the roads were designed for ‘anything by car,'” she says. Any other user using our roads has been completely banned. »
For example, a 12-year-old kid who wants to bike two kilometers to get to the Éva Senécal Public Library in downtown Sherbrooke would “put his life at risk,” admits the civil engineer.
Last year, elected officials passed a comprehensive traffic calming strategy targeting school zones, senior residences (RPA) and child care centers (CPE), park entrances and local roads.
“Essentially, the strategy will take away space that was once made available to vehicles to give back to other users,” Ms Gravel said, adding that during road repairs lanes will be reduced and the reclaimed space will be used for activities such as transportation or greenery.
One of the issues often raised in Sherbrooke is the speed limit, which is 50 km/h in residential areas. The city has so far not wanted to lower the limit due to a lack of physical changes on the road, but instead launched an awareness campaign last summer, allowing residents to post 40 km/h signs on their property.
multiply measures
Marie-Soleil Cloutier, a professor at the National Institute for Scientific Research (INRS) and director of the Pedestrians and Urban Space Laboratory, says she understands Sherbrooke’s reluctance to reduce speed unless it is accompanied by a change in configuration.
“Just changing the speed limit signs isn’t always effective without further intervention, but we’ve seen speed reductions being practiced in our work on MTQ roads [ministère des Transports du Québec] who had only changed the signs. On the other hand, the average speed sometimes stayed above the stated limit, so it’s certainly not enough as an intervention, but it’s no reason not to do it while waiting to do more,” she says.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, THE PRESS
One of the elements of the overall strategy adopted by the city is to give back space for active traffic or greenery during road repairs, explains civil engineer Caroline Gravel, director of Sherbrooke’s Department of Urban Infrastructure.
Caroline Gravel notes that the City of Sherbrooke and the Union of Quebec Municipalities are asking the Department of Transportation to change the Highway Code to increase the speed limit on residential streets from 50 km/h to 40 km/h.
“So all Québec cities could benefit from this effect for free,” she said.
Responding to citizens who wish to see more concrete changes in the streets of Sherbrooke, Ms. Gravel said that the Department of Urban Infrastructure is taking initiatives and proposing solutions adapted to the legal framework imposed by the MTQ.
“You also need budgets,” she says. We can put all policies and strategies in place, if the budgets don’t come, the services won’t be able to do anything. »