(Quebec) Faced with parents who are mobilizing to demand better security for active travel around schools, the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, promises to table a “reinforced action plan” in terms of road safety which will make “a place important” to photo radar.
During the first question period of the year on Tuesday in Quebec City, the Liberal MP for the riding of Acadie in Montreal, André Albert Morin, asked Mr.me Guilbault if she had a plan to avoid other dramas like the death of Mariia Legenkovska, a little girl mowed down by a motorist in December while she was on her way to school.
“These cases happen too often. Our children are in danger near school zones. And yet, there are solutions, in particular photoradar, to obviously invite motorists to reduce their speed,” said Mr. Morin.
Mme Guilbault replied that there was already a 2021-2025 road safety prevention strategy, led by the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), but that it needed to be improved. “The MP is right, more needs to be done,” she said.
“We will arrive very soon with a plan that will be improved, in which photoradar will have an important place, but will not be the only measure that we will put in place,” added Ms.me Guilbault. “Photoradars are one of the elements, [mais] This is not the only one. Repression, yes, but it always takes a lot of prevention and awareness at the same time, ”she added.
The Minister of Transport then recalled that there were already 54 photo radars in Quebec, including 30 which are fixed and 24 which are mobile, and which can be placed in school or “accident-prone” zones.
While the city notes an increase in pedestrians seriously injured in road accidents on its territory, The Press reported Monday that the City of Montreal had submitted a project to the Ministry of Transport (MTQ) to install photo radars in densely populated neighborhoods. Currently, a municipality must obtain ministry approval to use photo radar outside of a school zone.
“Each potential site must be submitted to us for approval and be the subject of a ministerial order,” he says. The municipalities cannot decide tomorrow morning: I put a mobile photo radar in such and such a place because I feel like it, ”explained MTQ spokesperson Nicolas Vigneault. Cities can, however, install photo radar without a ministerial order in a school zone, he said.
In interview at The Pressthe professor at the National Institute for Scientific Research (INRS), Marie-Soleil Cloutier, also recalled that “the studies are clear: photo radars reduce speed and collisions”.