Task force shares findings with council

Traffic calming for vehicles, crosswalk improvements and active transportation were listed as topics for the city to keep in mind to make the city safer at a Brandon City Council meeting earlier this week.

The city’s Vision Zero task force, which started in 2022, was dissolved at Monday’s meeting, with the committee’s findings being presented as a result.

“For the longest time, the culture has been to build roadways first for cars and second for all other users,” Sam van Huizen, the city’s traffic and transportation planner, said at the meeting.

“This way of thinking puts too much effort on the least vulnerable road user. A change in this way of thinking about road use needs to occur” for Vision Zero’s goals to be implemented, he said.

The findings will be used both for how existing infrastructure can be improved, and for building future neighbourhoods.

“We all may need to take a shift away from how we have planned, operated, maintained, funded and used our roadways,” van Huizen said.

The task force, made up of representatives from city council, city staff, the Brandon School Division, the city’s age-friendly committee and community members, will now meet every three to five years to re-evaluate the findings.

Traffic calming measures that have been implemented lately are increased signage, speed humps on some residential roads and temporary curbs being added, council was told.

The city also recently put more money toward adding flashing signals for crosswalks, and it is in talks with the City of Winnipeg about potentially advocating the provincial government to lower the province’s default residential speed limit to 40 km/h. The default residential speed limit is currently 50 km/h.

For Brandon to switch to 40 km/h zones on its own without provincial regulations changing, it would have to place signs all over the city, which would be expensive, van Huizen said.

Coun. Greg Hildebrand (Ward 5), who was on the task force, said he thought the program was effective at bringing specific issues to the forefront, and at determining how things should be addressed.

“It kind of brought out the gaps within the safety within the city,” he said in an interview.

He said the task force has helped raise awareness after speaking with different stakeholders and agencies.

In the future, Hildebrand said purpose built roads, like narrower streets, chicanes, roundabouts or speed tables, humps or bumps, could come into play to make neighbourhoods safer.

“I think when people see that, they’ll understand that it’s about road safety, not just a way to make our lives a little bit more cumbersome as we go about our daily lives,” he said.

He added that lowering the default residential speed limit has been talked about quite a bit, and that most residents he has spoken to would support the change.

Fellow task force member Coun. Jason Splett (Ward 8) said bringing more awareness for people on the roads is important, as there have been some fatalities and close calls reported in the city in recent years.

Splett said the task force brought a good group of voices together, including police, the school division and disability perspectives.

“I think it’s a very good starting place for city administration to look at different ways to help,” Splett said on Friday.

“Nothing will eliminate accidents, but if we can lower that number, mitigate risk, I think that’s what we were all there for.”

» alambert@brandonsun.com