Thank you.
We are honoured by this invitation from your committee.
I represent the Montreal Public Health Department. I am here to talk about the transportation system and our efforts in the area of public health to improve public transportation, to facilitate walking, cycling, and physical activity, and to reduce the number of people injured on the road.
Our team is made up of some twenty professionals, including doctors, specialists, geographers and urban planners. We also work with civil engineers. We focus on problems with the built environment and health.
We conduct research with universities. We are also involved in intervention and community action. So we support all efforts to reduce health impacts related to the built environment, such as unhealthy housing conditions, poor outdoor air quality, lack of physical activity and road accidents.
Today we are here to deliver two messages. Our presentation will be brief. The two messages deal with the public transportation system in Canada and in Canadian cities more specifically.
Many health problems are linked to the transportation system and to mobility. Lack of exercise is one of them. Road accidents are another. If we want to facilitate walking, cycling, and physical activity, we must start by developing safer environments.
That sounds easy, but in all Canadian cities, pedestrians and cyclists are exposed to significant volumes of car and truck traffic. The number of injuries is staggering. It is the leading cause of death among young people aged 1 to 35 in Canada and the U.S.
You will be receiving a number of additional documents by email at a later date, but I have attached a map of Montreal Island to the short document. On Montreal Island alone, 1,000 pedestrians, including 300 children, are struck each year and require an ambulance. Safety is the main reason people mention for not walking in Canadian cities.
You will receive graphs, but safety clearly varies with traffic volumes. That is obvious. The more traffic there is at an intersection, the more injuries will occur. More injured pedestrians mean more injured drivers. More injured young people mean more injured older people.
These incidents occur primarily on large arteries. We have seen the problem in Edmonton, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. In short, we have seen the trend in all large-size and medium-size cities or smaller cities in Canada. Arteries or busy streets are built primarily for vehicle traffic, and often, not enough time or room is left for pedestrians to cross or for cyclists to ride through. Our first message, therefore, is that safer environments need to be built.
The second message is also simple but nevertheless somewhat radical. We need to see a paradigm shift in the planning of urban transportation. First, we must stop exacerbating the problem by increasing road capacity. We must stop developing the road network and prioritize public transportation. People who use public transportation often walk enough to meet Canada's recommended physical activity levels.
Urban and transportation planning must be integrated. In metropolitan regions, the transportation system needs to be reviewed, or at the very least, development of the road network must be stopped.
At the neighbourhood level, traffic calming plans must be developed and implemented. Curb extensions, medians and shelters must be built. People walking and living in neighbourhoods in Canadian cities must be protected.
The third measure specifically targets pedestrians and cyclists. We must build safer pedestrian crossings which encourage drivers to slow down and stop, which reduce pedestrians' exposure to vehicle traffic so that it is as short in duration as possible, and we must build a network of dedicated cycling lanes to enable cyclists to ride in our cities.
Canada, along with the U.S., is one of the places in the world where people walk the least. Increasing the number of people walking and cycling requires safer layouts and improved transportation systems.
The main obstacle to more walking and cycling in Canadian cities is public space and the fact that automobile traffic is a funding priority. When a highway or a major thoroughfare is built, there is unfortunately not often any space or money left over for bicycle lanes or safer pedestrian crossings.
Over the past 10 years, we have published many scientific articles, briefs and positions on this topic. I would be pleased to answer you, in English or in French, and to provide them to you afterward.
Thank you very much.