Saturday night's fatal collision on Spruce Street brings the number of pedestrians who have recently died after being struck by vehicles to five.
Since early October, four incidents have resulted in the deaths of five people, which to RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Craig Douglass, seems like more than in recent memory.
On Sunday, a 75-year-old man was struck near his parked vehicle in the 1700 block of Spruce Street. A 79-year-old woman was killed in mid-December on Winnipeg Street nearly two months after a 50-year-old woman and 49-year-old man died after being struck by a commercial tractor trailer while crossing Nicholson Street near the College of New Caledonia. Prior to that, a 36-year-old man was killed after getting hit while crossing First Avenue near Dominion Street on Oct. 5, 2014.
There doesn't appear to be anything that has changed to indicate why this is happening, said Douglass.
"Our traffic services section is in talks with ICBC and other partners and we're looking at trying to determine how this is happening and what, if anything, we can be doing more of to prevent it aside from educating both drivers and pedestrians," Douglass said. "Certainly, in this community, as in all communities that I've been to, there's a combination of pedestrians crossing where they shouldn't be and drivers not stopping for pedestrians where they should be."
On Monday, Coun. Jillian Merrick noted on social media that the fatalities signalled that it was "time to rally city hall to properly fund pedestrian infrastructure."
During the Jan. 5 meeting, Merrick was named as city council's liaison to the accessibility committee, which has long been lobbying council for more funding for sidewalks.
The city's capital plan for this year features $250,000 for sidewalk rehabilitation, budgeted out of the general infrastructure reinvestment fund. Early estimates reported to council in January indicated that an annual investment of closer to $1.4 million would be necessary to bring sidewalk infrastructure to where it needs to be.
Last year, the city was able to beef up its investment with more than $760,000 in extra Capital Works Fund money to accelerate the repair schedule on sidewalks and ramps.
Merrick said she would be looking to have a change made to boost the sidewalk repair budget in the 2015 budget before it passes final reading.
"The challenge really is it has to come out of somewhere. There's no other money to be had, so if we're fully funding our sidewalk infrastructure what other budget are we taking it from? And [roads] seems like an obvious one because it's all related to transportation," she said. "Everyone is a pedestrian at some point and everyone relies on sidewalks at some point so for me they're universally beneficial. They don't just benefit a certain group and they're totally essential to the basic transportation network."
Regardless of what the investigations into these collisions turn up, caution while out on the roads should be paramount, said Douglass.
"Anyone of these incidences certainly could have been prevented, I'm relatively confident, by exercising caution on both sides of the steering wheel," he said.
