Death of boy following accident at crosswalk prompts calls for traffic light at intersection

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This article was published 14/02/2018 (2948 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Cheryl Bryant will never forget the screams of an anguished mother who had just watched her eight-year-old son get struck by a truck at a St. Vital crosswalk on Tuesday.

The boy’s death was confirmed later that day.

“She was looking up and praying in another language,” a teary-eyed Bryant said on Wednesday.

“I’ve taken a first responder course so I knew she was in shock. I told a paramedic, but he looked like he was in shock, too. I said this woman is in shock and you need to put her in a fire truck.”

Bryant, who has lived in the area for more than 30 years during which two other people have also died at the crosswalk at St. Anne’s Road between Bank and Varennes avenues, said she wants those screams to be the last she hears there.

“Please put a traffic light here,” Bryant said. “A traffic light is safer than a crosswalk. This is the No. 1 highway; this is the Trans-Canada Highway. There should be a light here. There’s a school near here. A lot of people live on this side of St. Anne’s… three people have died here, but every year somebody gets hit at that crosswalk.

“Thank God not everybody dies.”

The area’s city councillor, Brian Mayes, confirmed he will ask city staff for the second time in six years for a traffic study to see if a traffic light can be installed there.

The boy, a Grade 3 student at nearby École Varennes, was struck on Tuesday around 8:20 a.m., moments after adult crossing guards wrapped up their shift at the crosswalk on St. Anne’s Road. Classes at the school begin at 8:15 a.m., and the school’s website says supervised crossings there run from 8 a.m. to 8:17 a.m.

The boy was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The driver of the vehicle involved, a grey GMC truck, remained on scene.

It’s not the first time the idea of a traffic light has been brought up for that location.

Mayes (St. Vital) said he first asked administration in the city’s traffic department about putting a signal light there in 2012, in response to a request by a constituent.

Staff responded to his request in November 2012, with “a string of internal emails among traffic staff,” he said.

“They did not recommend the change,” Mayes said.

“The traffic criteria were not met for a full lighted intersection, and other pedestrian crossings were noted as higher priorities for the pedestrian-activated light crossings.”

Staff didn’t do a formal traffic study at the time, but instead relied on data they already had in their files, Mayes said. A side street is supposed to have 85 cars per hour on it before a traffic light is green lighted, he said.

Last month, the city approved a traffic study on a nearby section of southbound St. Anne’s, but he is now going to ask the study to be amended to include the portion of the street where the crosswalk is in both directions.

“It is certainly tragic what happened. It is the worst day for any parent — this is your worst fear,” Mayes said.

“I didn’t know two other people had died there. That’s a concern. We need to get a new report and see if there’s more we can do there.”

Daniel LaFrance, 10, was killed by a vehicle at the same crossing in September 1981, while a 34-year-old woman was struck there in 2006, dying two days later in hospital.

Bryant, who lives on Bank Street near St. Anne’s, said she was watching television on Tuesday morning when she heard a woman scream.

By the time she went outside, the child was in an ambulance and the boy’s mother, who was upset, was in the middle of the street near where he had landed after being struck.

Meanwhile, police say any charges related to the accident will probably be Highway Traffic Act related and not criminal.

“The driver is co-operating,” Winnipeg police spokesman Const. Rob Carver said Wednesday, adding police aren’t looking at criminal charges such as dangerous or careless driving.

“We don’t see any evidence of these… (police) would be leaning to HTA charges.”

Carver said the investigation will take some time because of the detailed analysis which needs to be done, including working out whether the vehicle was going too fast for the road conditions at the time and studying any surveillance-camera footage.

The speed limit on St. Anne’s is 60 km/h and the crosswalk has overhead flashing lights activated by pedestrians by pushing buttons.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca