Safety around schools | “It’s on the shoulders of parents”

A teenager killed in Amos, three children hit by drivers in Montreal: at the start of this tragic school year, citizens deplore the fact that the responsibility for protecting young people “rests on the shoulders of parents.” Or of the extended family, even in mourning.

You don’t have to stand in front of La Croisée High School in Laval for long to see traffic violations. Cars are driving too fast, others are passing a pedestrian crossing without stopping, even if a young person is in the middle of the road waiting to cross.

Martine Lanoue knows the neighborhood well: she lives very close to this school of 1,500 students inaugurated at the start of the school year. Her two sons attend it.

For several months, she has been denouncing the poor facilities around the brand new secondary school. She is demanding stop signs instead of yellow stripes, which have been repainted in front of the school, on Boulevard du Souvenir.

On a beautiful Tuesday afternoon, she enters the pedestrian crossing.

“We’ll try it,” she said.

In front of us, cars pass by. The sixth driver sees us and stops. “Who in six stops?” asks Martine Lanoue.

She is not alone in finding the layout unsafe for students walking to the school.

“I live nearby and I regularly pass by this street. Nine times out of ten, I have to signal to cars to stop,” wrote a local resident on Facebook, who is also calling for stops rather than simple road markings.

Last June, the Laval Mail reported that the area’s city councilor, Sandra Desmeules, assured that the neighborhood was safe, but called it a “ticket place.”

A speed display will soon be installed on Boulevard du Souvenir, in front of the secondary school, according to the City of Laval.

“The display will be there to raise awareness among motorists and enable data to be collected for a few weeks. […] Our services will be able to analyze it and plan additional interventions, if required,” indicates by email Philippe Déry, head of public affairs at the City of Laval.

The “Nathan Project” for a young man from Amos

Last month, a teenager from Amos, in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, died after being hit while getting off his school bus. A motorist failed to stop even though the vehicle’s stop lights were on. To get home, Nathan, just 13, crossed a road where the speed limit is 90 km/h.

The Sûreté du Québec confirms that the investigation is continuing and that, for the moment, no charges have been filed.

Shortly after the tragedy, his grieving aunt started the “Nathan Project”.

“In life, I don’t like injustices,” says Rose-Marie Paradis. “So when I can do something, I do it. But this is the first time I’ve done something so public,” adds the woman who has given a few interviews to the media in recent days.

Rose-Marie Paradis intends to submit a petition to the National Assembly to request changes to school transport routes, so that young people do not have to cross roads when they get off the bus.

“Four stops before Nathan’s, another driver had passed even though the bus was stopped,” she said.

In recent years, we have often seen citizens mobilize to force municipalities to make safer arrangements in front of schools. Short of resources, several parents have come out in the media. Their message is often the same: there will be more deaths if nothing is done.

“Right now, it’s on the shoulders of parents when there are dangerous situations. It can’t hold up any longer,” says Alexandra Deschênes, spokesperson for the Pas une mort de plus collective.

This citizens’ group was born in the wake of the death of Mariia Legenkovska, killed by a motorist one morning in December 2022. The 7-year-old girl was going to school with her brother and sister, in the Centre-Sud district, when she was hit.

Relying on citizen mobilisation to improve school routes creates inequity in terms of safety, deplores M^me Deschênes: If in a region or a neighborhood, no one takes the initiative to hound the leaders, “nothing will happen, and that is unacceptable.”

Patience

The Pas une mort de plus collective is calling for the creation of an organization that would have the expertise to ensure safety on school trips, similar to the Commission des normes, de l’équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CNESST), which ensures the safety of workers.

“With the situation that occurred in Amos, we learned that garbage collectors are not authorized to make such a crossing on a high-speed road, whereas with our children, it goes through like clockwork,” says Alexandra Deschênes.

Yes, Quebec has imposed a maximum speed of 30 km/h in all school zones, but “about ten steps and you are no longer in a school zone,” emphasizes Alexandra Deschênes.

To Martine Lanoue, who deplored the absence of sidewalks in Laval on a portion of the route that young people will take to go to high school, municipal councillor Claude Larochelle, from Fabreville, specified, in a recent municipal council meeting, that “Laval is one of the large cities in Quebec where there are the fewest sidewalks in [les] residential streets”.

“In 2019, we adopted a master plan for sidewalks, which is spread over 30 years, if I remember correctly. We will have to be a little patient,” he added.

Many parents no longer have patience, especially at the start of the year when accidents are increasing.

There are more and more cars on the roads, and they are bigger too, says Alexandra Deschênes.

“If we do not impose mandatory arrangements around schools and on school routes, we should not be surprised: there will be other collisions,” she says.