'Make our streets more livable': City looking for feedback about traffic concerns

Edmonton working toward zero fatal crashes The city is looking for feedback about traffic concerns in an effort to reach their goal of zero traffic fatalities.

EDMONTON — The City of Edmonton’s goal of achieving "Vision Zero," no traffic fatalities or serious injuries on city streets, is one step closer to happening.

The Safe Mobility Strategy, using five years of collision and census data, is one of the tools the city is using. It enables residents to give their input by filling out an online survey adding where they feel problem areas are and suggest ways to improve them.

"This enables us to conduct both crash and equity analysis and map out Edmonton's high injury network," says Traffic Safety Director Jessica Lamarre.

The network identifies areas of the city where the highest number of crashes have happened. There are 15 neighborhoods, many in the city's core, on the list.

"That's where they are happening and they're happening disproportionately when compared to other neighborhoods of Edmonton," said Lamarre. "That's why we're putting forward that they need to be prioritized in the next five years."

One of those areas is Old Strathcona, where some residents would like to see more enforcement of bikes and e-scooters using sidewalks and creating problems for pedestrians.

"On a few occasions we have some cyclists or people who ride e-scooters along the sidewalks and it does create a bit of commotion with pedestrians," said one resident.

The city says the switch to the highly visible photo radar vehicles has changed public opinion, saying red light and speed cameras led to a 10 per cent drop in crashes last year.

"That's a huge impact where that means that automated enforcement is helping to save lives and to make our streets more livable," says Lamarre.

The last day for the public to provide online input for the Safe Mobility Strategy is Sept. 23, the plan is to be presented to council by the end of 2020.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Amanda Anderson.