The City of Montreal wants to implement “longer crossing times” at all of its intersections with traffic lights. A hundred additional sound signals, allowing blind or visually impaired people to cross the street safely, are however still awaiting installation.
Currently, one third of the 2,344 intersections with traffic lights in the metropolis, or 771 of them, meet the new universal travel standards, which corresponds to a travel speed of approximately 1.1 m per second. The objective is to have these crossing times applied to all intersections within seven years, in 2029.
“We are in the process of reviewing all the intersections with traffic lights, at a rate of about 250 per year”, indicated Wednesday evening the team leader of the Urban Planning and Mobility Department (SUM), Bartek. Komorowsk during a commission on universal accessibility. “There will be opportunities to anticipate interventions in certain places”, in particular accident-prone sectors, he specified.
According to him, one of the challenges will be to “integrate audible signals and longer crossing times at traffic lights by minimizing the waiting time of all users”.
Today, 280 sleepers also have audible lights, just over 10% of them. “At the time of writing our document, we had 92 sound sleepers waiting to be installed. Of these 92, there are 58 for which the plans were ready and the work is already scheduled,” explained engineer Elise Cécyre.
Some 22 sound signals will be installed “through street redevelopment projects” after the winter season, and 36 through the traffic signal asset maintenance program. As a general rule, once the evaluations have been completed, the installation of a sound signal takes less than a year.
However, the SUM points out that “when the installation is carried out as part of a street redevelopment project, the time between receipt of the request and commissioning of the sound signals can be long if the project is spread over several years “. This is the case, for example, for the Pie-IX Bus Rapid Service (SRB).
The impact of construction sites
Montreal also intends to “install the sound signals in the right axis using existing furniture as much as possible, and ensure the alignment of walking corridors when connecting a new development to the existing one”. The City is also aiming to improve the monitoring of road works to “reduce the gap between the design and the implementation of developments”.
The advisor associated with the executive committee, Marianne Giguère, for her part recognized on Wednesday that the growing popularity of pedestrianization projects implemented in the summer in Montreal called for serious reflection in terms of reduced mobility.
“Traders do good business, people appreciate them, but for people with visual impairments, it complicates things because they lose their bearings [fournis par la circulation automobile]. This is a serious problem for which solutions must be found,” she said.
That said, “the all-drive-at-all-costs paradigm is definitely changing,” Ms.me Giguere. The desire to make more room for active and collective transportation “is greater than ever, and so are the investments,” she concluded.