Cycling, pedestrian advocate seeks more data on street safety in Summerside
CBC
A safe streets advocate in Summerside, P.E.I., wants more data on collisions between vehicles and cyclists or pedestrians in the city.
Ken Trenholm is president of the non-profit group SAFE Summerside, which stands for Streets Are For Everyone.
He says knowing more about how and when collisions happen could help prevent them.
"Many times it's motor vehicles backing into a pedestrian," Trenholm told CBC's Island Morning host Mitch Cormier on Tuesday. "Or pedestrians who are on crosswalks, or pedestrians who are on sidewalks."
According to data on the SAFE website, which Trenholm said he got from Summerside Police Services, 16 pedestrians or cyclists were involved in a collision with a vehicle in 2022.
That was more than double the seven such collisions in the year before, and an increase from the previous two years as well, with 11 in 2020, and eight in 2019.
CBC News asked the City of Summerside to verify those collision numbers, but did not receive confirmation by the time of publication.
Trenholm wants to understand more about exactly where and how these collisions happened, and see if there were any patterns, in hopes they could be prevented.
The majority of vehicle incidents involving a pedestrian or cyclist — 59 per cent of them — happened at intersections. But between 12 to 20 per cent occurred in parking lots, according to SAFE Summerside's data.
Trenholm said he now always backs into parking spaces in lots, so he can see people better when pulling out — and he thinks more people would do the same if they understood the risks of reversing from spaces with poor visibility.
"That would reduce the collisions just by that simple piece of education," he said.
Early last month, Summerside City Council approved funding to start building an active transportation lane along Pope Road in its 2024 budget.
The new lane — for cyclists, pedestrians and other active road users would — connect to the existing bike lane on Greenwood Drive that runs to Water Street.
"Pope Road was a high priority — not only for us, but for SAFE Summerside," said J.P. Desrosiers, Summerside's deputy chief administrative officer.
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