The Province has released an expanded toolkit to help local governments interested in making their streets and related features safer, no matter how people get around.

Two new modules and an introduction round out the BC Community Road Safety Toolkit, which discusses and illustrates some of the safest, most innovative road design features from around the world:

• Introduction: gives an overview of the underlying themes and concepts contained in the toolkit, the role of local governments in road safety, the goal of Vision Zero (that is, working toward zero traffic fatalities and serious injuries) and the Safe Systems Approach.
• Module 2: Safe Roadway Designs to Protect All Road Users provides rationales and implementation considerations for dozens of roadway designs and features geared to making intersections and corridors safer. Topics include narrowed vehicle lanes, speed humps, various traffic control enhancements, and ways to improve street signs and lighting. This module includes a bibliography of, and links to, guides, technical manuals and other documents with more information on specific design and infrastructure options.
• Module 3: Implementation Tools and Strategies advises municipalities about how to build local support for road system changes they are considering. Topics include strategic planning and evaluation, communication and engagement, cost considerations, and promoting active transport, including by bicycle and small-wheeled vehicles, like skateboards. Links to many online reference materials complement the text.

The full toolkit — including an earlier module focused on safety measures to protect pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users — is now available on RoadSafetyBC’s website at: www.gov.bc.ca/roadsafetybc/toolkit

Geared to municipalities interested in enhancing road safety when upgrading infrastructure, the toolkit explores such design options as raised crossings, off-street pedestrian and bicycle paths, safe parking lot designs, and pedestrian scrambles, which are intersections where traffic in all directions stops to allow pedestrians to cross the intersection in any direction at one time.

The release of the expanded toolkit coincides with the 2018 conference of the Canadian Association of Road Safety Professionals, which takes place June 10–13, 2018, in Victoria. A working committee, with representatives from local governments, academia, the private sector, ICBC, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, and the Ministry of Health, developed the kit.

Quick Facts:

• The toolkit responds to road safety issues and challenges identified by about 80 B.C. communities that participated in RoadSafetyBC’s 2015 BC Communities Road Safety Survey.
• The toolkit supports the BC Road Safety Strategy and the Province’s vision of bringing B.C. one step closer to the goal of zero traffic fatalities and zero serious injuries.
• In B.C., 60% of all crashes, and 76% of crashes involving pedestrians, happen at intersections.
• Between 2006 and 2015, the number of traffic fatalities at intersections remained stable, while the number not occurring at intersections decreased steadily.
• Provincewide, speed is the top contributing factor in fatal crashes, with the crashes in which police cite speed as a contributing factor killing an average of 88 people each year.
• Top contributing factors attributed to drivers in crashes where a pedestrian is injured or killed are: driver distraction and inattention, driver failure to yield right-of-way, and weather.