Signal change will give pedestrians five-second jump on traffic in most downtown intersections

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This article was published 14/02/2025 (230 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg pedestrians will soon get a head start to cross many intersections more safely.

Beginning in early March, city officials will start installing leading pedestrian intervals at about 80 per cent of signalized intersections in the downtown, a city staff report notes.

“The head start allows pedestrians to be more visible in the intersection before the signal turns green for vehicles,” David Patman, the city’s manager of transportation planning, wrote in the report.

Leading pedestrian intervals provide a four- to six-second head start for pedestrians to begin crossing an intersection before the signal turns green for vehicles traveling the same direction, Patman wrote.

The downtown changes will signal pedestrians to cross five seconds before vehicles.

On Friday, council’s public works committee welcomed the signal changes and expanded them. The committee instructed staff to implement the change citywide at all eligible signalized intersections within the year. A progress report is due back in six months.

“It gives (foot traffic) a head start in crossing the intersection, versus pedestrians starting and cars just taking off… I strongly support anything we can do to support the vulnerable road user, which is the pedestrians,” said Coun. Janice Lukes, chairwoman of public works.

“Most of the death and carnage… (from collisions happens) at intersections.”

Lukes (Waverley West) noted the change resulted in a 13 per cent reduction in collisions in other cities.

The traffic signals branch will revise timing throughout downtown to support the reopening of pedestrian crossings at Portage Avenue and Main Street later this year, so the changes happen simultaneously.

The public works department can do the work at no added capital cost, the report noted.

“It’s a very cost-effective way to increase safety for the vulnerable road user…. If we can even do 50 per cent of (the installations) within a year…. That’s fantastic,” said Lukes.

The staff report notes some intersections aren’t suited to the change and selection will consider potential traffic delays, pedestrian crash risk and pedestrian volumes.

“Not every intersection of downtown is being done. Where there’s… already delay or there’s congestion, we’re not including them,” Patman told the public works committee.

Head start signals also won’t be added at intersections that already restrict vehicles from turn during the pedestrian crossing phase, the report said.

The city previously installed head start signals at roughly approximately 30 intersections, including at Bannatyne Avenue and Main Street, Broadway and Main Street, Main Street and Market Avenue, Main Street and McDermot Avenue, Osborne Street and Stradbrook Avenue and Osborne Street and River Road.

Early results of video surveillance at those intersections (among those with sufficient data) found an average 35 per cent reduction of “near miss” incidents, the report noted.

Between 2012 and 2018, an average of 33 per cent of all road-related fatalities and 10 per cent of all major injury collisions in Winnipeg involved a pedestrian, with most taking place at intersections, according to the report. And from 2015 to 2022, about 275 pedestrians were involved in road-related crashes downtown, including 13 that resulted in major injuries and eight in fatalities.

Staff expect the signal change to be completed at the selected downtown intersections in May.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

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