(Quebec) The concept of “school corridor” will be included for the first time in the Highway Safety Code, a “major step forward” according to the Quebec government, which is however far from satisfying parent groups.
The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility (MTMD) herself presented Tuesday in parliamentary committee an amendment to her overhaul of the Highway Code, Bill 48. The added article stipulates that school corridors – i.e. the path that children take on foot or by bike to get to school – will be included in the Road Safety Code.
“This is more than a major step forward,” said Geneviève Guilbault. “We include the notion of a school corridor in the road safety code, it will become essential. »
But both opposition parties and parent groups have highlighted the limits of the amendment. School corridors will not be set up de facto around schools. Municipalities will have the freedom to create them themselves, but will have no obligation to do so.
Initially, the bill focused only on “school zones,” which were much smaller in size than corridors.
“For us, it’s completely insufficient,” reacted Virginia Roberge-Dion, member of the Pas une mort plus collective, formed in the wake of the death of little Mariia.
She was killed in December 2022 by a motorist while going to school in Montreal. But the intersection where she was struck, in the “school corridor,” was not close enough to the school to enter the “school zone.”
Parents who asked to include the corridor concept in the bill often brought up this example to demonstrate the legislative piece’s lack of teeth.
Mme Roberge-Dion concedes that this is a step in the right direction. “But for us it is insufficient not to oblige the municipalities. We know that some municipalities refuse to apply the coroner’s recommendations, as happened in Saint-Flavien,” she said. She refers to this recommendation from the coroner to install a sidewalk in front of the school following the death of Anaïs Renaud, 11, caught in a shoulder on her way to school. Saint-Flavient never implemented the recommendation.
What speed limit in a corridor?
Remember that Bill 48, which must now be adopted in parliament, limits car speeds to 30 km/h in school zones, among other changes. School zones are defined as areas 50 meters from a school in urban areas and 100 m in rural areas. However, the school corridor is a much broader concept: it includes the entire path that a child can travel on foot.
“It is in school corridors that there are the most fatal and serious accidents. The non-obligatory nature of developing corridors prevents us from acting everywhere in Quebec,” declared in the parliamentary committee the solidarity member for Taschereau, Étienne Grandmont.
The minister indicated that she had to juggle the interests of several civil society actors. “Time will take its course, the municipalities will get on board and we will define the corridors together in a way that is applicable for them. »
The amendment provides that municipalities that choose to set up school corridors will have to develop them according to a guide from the ministry. This guide must be modified following work which begins on Wednesday. We therefore do not yet know if the speed limit will also be 30 km/h in the possible corridors.
Piétons Québec notes a step in the right direction, even if the organization is disappointed that municipalities are left to designate or not corridors. “We could see that the minister was trying to find a way through,” notes the director, Sandrine Cabana-Degani.
However, this highlights some good moves by the minister in this bill. She cites, for example, this article from the Highway Code about pedestrian crossings. This specified that the motorist must give way to a pedestrian who “clearly demonstrates his intention to enter a crossing”. The bill removes the word “clearly”, which “was not clear”, according to the director of Piétons Québec.