Tag Archives: Seniors and Walking

Enhancing Safety for Pedestrians

The Crossing That Can Kill You

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The Globe and Mail has weighed in  with an article titled “Fatal Crossings” analyzing five years of data to ascertain why and how 163 pedestrians have died in the City of Toronto in the last five years. By the author Victor Biro’s calculations, that means that in Toronto on average  one pedestrian is hit on the street by a vehicle every four hours. It also means that a pedestrian on average  dies from a vehicular crash every ten days.

Just as Price Tags reported in the article entitled The Big Toll Paid by Vulnerable Road Users published on May 31st, the way people  are killed on the roads is a major public health issue. That is why the Chief Medical Officer of British Columbia, Dr. Perry Kendall has written a report Where the Rubber Meets The Road: Reducing the Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes on Health and Well-being in British Columbia, addressing the deaths of 280 people a year and the maiming of 79,000 others on roads in this Province.

As Dr. Kendall states, this is a health emergency. His report and his advice, which included lowering speed limits were dismissed by authorities like the Canadian Automobile Association, which were interviewed  for their reaction. However evidence clearly proves that the survivability for a pedestrian or cyclist hit at 30 kilometers per hour is 80 per cent, while the survivability for a pedestrian or cyclist hit at 50 kilometers per hour is 10 per cent.  Somehow the intransigence of the car lobby is more important than that of the vulnerable road user who is also sustainably participating in active transportation.

The Kendall report cites the human factors contributing to fatal crashes as speed, distraction and impairment.  Toronto, which is preparing a road-safety plan realizes “that protecting pedestrians will require a fundamental shift in mindset, one that challenges the car culture and the unspoken attitude that traffic fatalities are an unavoidable reality of urban living”.

And there you have it. The Globe and Mail noted that a significant proportion of pedestrians killed were over 65. They were hit by a larger vehicle. They were typically crossing an arterial road. And not surprisingly in the suburbs and at a location without a traffic signal or cross walk. At either 30 kilometers an hour or 50 kilometers an hour, seniors are three to four times more likely to die than a younger person.

Reporter Victor Biro admonishes Toronto for “focusing its efforts at spots that have proved dangerous, a reactive approach that effectively means that pedestrians have to die or be seriously injured before drivers will be made to slow down”.  The warrant system  used in the City of Vancouver is similar. Provincial funding  for intersections is made available based upon the accident and mortality rates garnered  from the provincial Insurance Corporation of B.C. (ICBC) statistics.  As in the case where a family of four were hit by a vehicle in an intersection in Surrey earlier this year, an intersection is not deemed suitable for  a safety upgrade until the human toll has been paid.

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With an aging population, many of whom  will be walking instead of driving, moving more slowly and with impaired hearing and sight, road safety is paramount. In Toronto 24 per cent of the population will be senior by 2041. There is an argument that enhancing walkability means universal accessibility for all, and enhances active transportation. In the same manner as creating separated bike lanes for those eight to eighty years, we should be enhancing safe, comfortable walking facilities for those six to 106. Their lives depend upon that.

 

Society, Walking As Wayfinding, Walking for Wellbeing

Japan Uses Local Convenience Stores to Aid Seniors “aging in place”.

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Those 7-11 corner convenience stores are a staple in North American cities and in Japan. Mimi Kirk in City Lab notes that the Japanese convenience stores provide the same items as North American ones-with one exception-

“convenience stores in Japan offer services that make them hubs of their communities. Customers can pay a utility bill, buy concert tickets, or make copies at a 7-Eleven or a similar retailer like Lawson or FamilyMart. In the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, convenience stores even set up emergency support centers and sent employees to aid survivors, among other good deeds.”

As Japan’s seniors population ages, the stores have become street corner mini community centres with healthier food, home food delivery and  “seating areas so that older customers can gather to socialize and practice their karaoke skills.”

Elder friendly services are increasing with 100 new locations in apartment complexes offering these services as well as room cleaning, clothes mending and dealing with maintenance problems in apartments.

Ryota Takemoto, a researcher with an institute focusing on Japan’s real estate sector states “We must prevent [the elderly] from losing their access to a convenience store so that we can use convenience store networks…as an economic and social infrastructure where aging is advancing fast.”

It’s an interesting adaptive innovation that may find credence here as we encourage more seniors to age in place in their own communities.

City rediscovers walking, Enhancing Safety for Pedestrians, Walking for Health, Walking for Wellbeing

Buenos Aires And Seniors Inclusivity

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This article published in World Crunch describes the innovative work that another by-the-sea city, with a very  large elderly population is undertaking to improve place and home for senior citizens.  With a quarter of its residents, approximately 700,000 people as senior citizens,  the municipal government

 “has forged a comprehensive plan, called PIAM, to revamp public spaces and improve the homes of the elderly. It expects to implement the changes beginning next year. The plans include new, better-suited furniture in public places (park benches that are specifically adapted, for example, to older people’s body shapes), prototypes of tricycles the elderly can use along cycling tracks, and more roofs over bus stops. The city also plans to measure how long it really takes seniors to cross busy streets and reprogram traffic lights accordingly.”

Prototypes are needed for better wheelchair access in public places, and in the home “simple measures, such as raising the height of sockets, having fewer items of furniture, not using carpets, mats or rugs, or fixing handles” she says.

The work is based upon WHO’s (World Health Organization) age friendly city designation. But what is important here is that this process involved collaborating with all parties including seniors to ensure that old people are included-without barriers, be they architectural or cultural. It is all in the detail, and Buenos Aires seems to be on  the right track.

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Enhancing Safety for Pedestrians

Seniors, Visibility and the Walk and Be Seen Project

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In 2016 11 pedestrians  died on Vancouver streets, the last being a senior who was struck by a car at Yew Street  and 49th Avenue. That is  one citizen a month that is being killed, and the majority of those deaths are senior Vancouverites.  If it was a disease and  not cars killing residents, we would be calling this an epidemic.

In 2012 seniors (those folks that are over 65 years of age) were only 13.2 per cent of the population. Forty per cent of  pedestrian fatalities that year were seniors.

Two mindful and very involved women in the west side of Vancouver decided to do something about this. Lynn Shepherd and Sabina Harpe come from professional librarian and social work backgrounds and were deeply concerned with the fact that no one is looking at seniors’ pedestrian safety in Vancouver winters.  Even the City of Vancouver gives short shrift to pedestrian issues, with no dedicated staff resourcing,  lumping those issues with cyclists in a volunteer advisory committee to Council.

Pedestrians issues are very different, and it is also the disenfranchised that do a lot of walking-those too young , too  infirm, too old and/or too poor to choose other alternatives. They are truly the voiceless, and no matter how well meaning  any volunteer advisory committee is, the importance  of walking mobility deserves to be championed and staffed separately and aggressively at city hall.

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Lynn and Sabina have done a lot of the work that the City of Vancouver should have done-they met with experts in the field, spoke to seniors groups and those with mobility challenges, and decided to focus on a project to encourage seniors to walk prudently and safely in winter, the time where most seniors are the most vulnerable to being hit by cars. They formed a committee through the Westside Seniors Hub at Kits House that included representatives from BEST, the Dunbar Residents Association/SFU, the Jewish Family Agency, Walk Metro Vancouver, Kits Community Centre, Brock House Society, ICBC and the Vancouver Police Department. They did their research and found that Sweden has had a three-fold reduction in vehicle and pedestrian fatalities and injuries since the adoption of a Vision Zero campaign in 1997. Besides encouraging better driver behaviour and pedestrian compliance to using intersections and crosswalks, visibility was key.

Vancouver’s low-light winters and rainy days mean that walkers need to be visible-the use of reflective items similar to those used in Finland could bring traffic accident and deaths down. While countries like Finland mandate that children must wear reflective items on their clothes, there is nothing like that in North America. By creating the “Walk and Be Seen Project” seniors that are walking in winter will be asked to walk with and trial various reflective items, including the reflective safety sash and snap on reflective bracelets. They are creating a pilot  project for 150 walking seniors on how to increase safety and visibility in winter by the use of reflective items. Their objectives are to encourage safe walking in low-light, complement ICBC and Vancouver Police Department safety campaigns, gather feedback, and use the date for further initiatives. And I completely expect those seniors to model behaviour and lead the way in us all wearing reflective items while walking  in our low light and potentially dangerous winter street environments, and start the dialogue on championing other pedestrian initiatives-road design, speed, and driver behaviour.

Kudos must be given to these two extraordinary women who are championing vulnerable seniors’ walkability and safety.

Enhancing Safety for Pedestrians, Walking As Wayfinding, Walking for Health

The Future for Seniors? It’s all about Walkable Communities

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The New York Times reports on a new phenomenon-the seniors are leading the way in retirement by showing us how we SHOULD be living-in walkable communities.

While people look for a comfortable house that works for families when they are younger,  “aging in place” is not necessarily the right term for older folks-“aging in community” appears more apt. This is especially important as the baby boom goes into their senior years, and will need access to shops and services, and may not necessarily be able to use a car.

In the age of the Fitbit and a growing cohort of active, engaged retirees eager to take their daily 10,000 steps, retirement communities have been slow to change. Eighty percent of retirees still live in car-dependent suburbs and rural areas, according to a Brookings Institution study.

Retirement communities are normally in two types: isolated gated communities, or large homes on golf courses, such as Tsawwassen Springs. The challenge is both of these types of developments are car dependent, and not great for walking, with curvilinear streets and dead ends. There is a new shift-getting out and walking to shops and services. Among senior housing projects, examples include Waterstone at Wellesley along the Charles River in the Boston area and The Lofts at McKinley in downtown Phoenix. 

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Walkability, though, is much more than a hip marketing pitch. It’s linked to better health, social engagement and higher property values. Research shows that walkable mixed-use communities can reduce disabilities for the aging, enhance social contacts and creates community. The challenge is building senior friendly mixed use developments within existing cities, as mainstream retirement developers had traditionally favored suburban or exurban sites that involve sprawling “greenfield” building on relatively cheap farmland. The new approach, by contrast, is for dense, urban or town-centered sites that are accessible for services and socially vibrant.

Changes that will be needed to accommodate seniors are rezoning mixed use developments and infrastructure changes such as wider sidewalks, bike lanes, more public transportation options and longer pedestrian signal walk times. That way instead of moving to remote locations away from family and familiar services, Grandma and Grandpa can stay where they have always been and be part of the whole community.

Enhancing Safety for Pedestrians

New Zealand, Older Pedestrians and Road Safety

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An article in the New Zealand Herald  notes how diminished the pedestrian is for road space in that country.  Lynley Hood is a researcher in Dunedin who is losing her sight and has started a petition asking the government to reduce the number of pedestrians killed on New Zealand roads. In New Zealand pedestrians do not have priority over motor vehicles when crossing side roads and intersections.

Between 2006 and 2015 384 pedestrians were killed on New Zealand roads. Ninety cyclists were killed during the same time. Dr. Hood notes that the government “has more than $350 million invested in a Cycling Safety Action Plan. There is no pedestrian safety plan.” Thirty per cent of the pedestrians killed on the roads were 65 years and older. Ms. Hood notes that the 104 seniors in that 30 per cent of  pedestrians were more than the total of cyclists killed, but that no special funding was available to ameliorate the cause of this carnage.

Ms. Hood had little interest in her work except from New Zealand’s chief coroner. Since the senior population in New Zealand will double in the next two decades that means the pedestrian death rate could also double.

“Older people need to walk for exercise, Dr Hood said, and they have to cross roads. They are more unstable, move more slowly and are likely to have sight and hearing problems.When crossing a road they have no protection, and they are generally poorer judges of speed and distance. What’s needed is some commitment by Government to pedestrian safety. There are a lot of young traffic designers who would leap at the chance of tackling the challenge if Government put some money into it. We’re not all petrolheads.”

In New Zealand anything that is not a motorized vehicle uses the sidewalk including scooters, skateboards, mobility scooters and Segways as well as walkers. There is no set standard for width, design, surface or grade. In a country with a population size similar to British Columbia’s it is time for motordom to accept the right of all users, and to give pedestrians the priority for safe access across roads.mot_blames_victims

Enhancing Safety for Pedestrians, Society

“Seniors Safety Zones” Toronto’s Answer to Road Violence?

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Ben Spurr of the Toronto Star reports on the City of Toronto’s response to the fact that 37 of the 43 pedestrians killed in Toronto in 2016-a staggering 86 per cent-were seniors over 55 years.  Mayor John Tory stated: It was the deadliest year for pedestrians in more than a decade, and also the worst year for older pedestrian deaths over that time. We must do more to prevent these deaths and to protect residents across the city. The number of people killed on our roads, pedestrians, every year, should be zero.” 

That is great to hear as Toronto’s “Vision Zero” for pedestrian deaths originally meant a 20 per cent reduction in the next five years.  It seems that Toronto wasn’t aware of what Vision Zero meant-as stated by the Swedish Vision Zero Initiative, “The Vision Zero is the Swedish approach to road safety thinking. It can be summarized in one sentence: No loss of life is acceptable. The Vision Zero approach has proven highly successful. It is based on the simple fact that we are human and make mistakes. The road system needs to keep us moving. But it must also be designed to protect us at every turn.” 

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Road deaths in Stockholm  are now at low levels not seen since the 1950’s.

Toronto’s approach has been to create what they are calling “senior zones”on 12 intersections where seniors have been maimed and killed. Speed limits are being reduced  10  km/h to 40 km/h, “seniors safety signage” will tell drivers to slow down, pavement markings and longer pedestrian crossing times will be programmed. Red light cameras will also be installed.

Lowering the speed fractionally for a street as opposed to a slower speed for a larger area and not changing the design of the street to physically slow cars seem to be pretty conservative changes.The City is installing its first ever road safety program after a horrifying loss of life. Time will tell if the baby steps of signage and police regulation will be enough to mitigate the speed and driver behaviour killing and maiming older  walking Torontonians. Road design changes for visibility and slower speeds as well as  massive behavioural change for vehicle drivers may be  necessary. Here’s hoping their approach works.

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