Quebec’s Lion School Bus Bankruptcy Means Local School Buses Not Repairable?
It was with considerable fanfare that local politicians in London announced that they were helping a local school bus operator to buy new electric buses from Lion Electric Company. In an article posted on June 21, 2024, the local CTV News outlet in London announced that the Canadian federal government was providing Langs Bus Lines in London with “$44.6 million in grants and loans to make the transition”. It was dubbed as a great success story. Yet, only a year later (according to an Electrick.co article of July 26, 2025) Lion was going bankrupt and its liquidator was sending letters to bus owners that the warranties on their buses were now void.
What is puzzling about this news is that a consortium of two firms from Quebec and Ontario bought the bankrupt Lion firm this summer and they are the same persons who owned it previously, this according to the Electrek article. So the new Lion has reformed but is not liable for its commitments to its previous clients even though, essentially, they are the same company? It all seems very confusing.
Locally, the federal funding to Langs Bus Lines in London was supposed to cover the cost of 200 new, electric, Lion buses and the charging infrastructure likely installed on their grounds. Some of those Lion buses were seen operating this past school season without complaints from local drivers. Limited charging meant that they could not be used for long distances outside of the City. With the Lion bankruptcy it is questionable how those buses will operate if they need repairs. And student safety must be maintained above all regardless of the financial difficulties.
It remains questionable why the federal government spent 44.6 million dollars, as reported in June, 2024 when the Lion company became bankrupt sometime before July, 2025, or less than a year after the announcement of the federal money. And the persons who would seemingly benefit from this are the same persons who previously owned Lion. Meanwhile bus operators such as Langs would seem to be left paying for the repairs of the new buses.
The Electrek article noted a number of complaints from “school districts” in the U.S. who reportedly must pay these expenses. It is possible that operations in the U.S. may be different in that school busing costs may be paid for by local districts and not by independent bus companies like Langs. In one instance the district of Herscher in Illinois reportedly received “$10 million for the purchase of 25 electric buses and the related charging station from various state and utility incentive programs”. However 6 of the 25 buses reportedly needed some form of repair.
In another instance at Winthrop Public Schools, the director reported that all four of their Lion buses were parked and not used: “Two of them are in need of repairs which would cost us money which we are not willing to invest in because the buses do not run for more than a month before needing more repairs.”
And in another instance at Yarmouth Maine the superintendent reported : “We’ve had some sporadic service over the past two years, but as soon as the tech leaves, the buses produce error codes again,” explained Dolloff. ” and “Then the technician quits or is released, and we wait a few months for the next response.”
If true, these facts reported by Electrek.co, would indicate some disturbing matters affecting local school busing in London, Ontario. It is understandable that operating electric school buses would seem to be a good idea and that government incentives to support this transition would be a reasonable approach. It is not clear however why the federal government has chosen a partnership with a failing bus manufacturer. There may be serious challenges to operating electric buses and that fact has not been made public.
Old North Traffic Safety Meeting – The Aftermath
A Traffic Safety meeting arranged by Ward 6 Councillor Sam Trosow occurred on the evening of July 23, 2025 at the parish hall of the St John Evangelist Church in the old north community of London, Ontario. The hall was fully occupied by the time the meeting got under way. Guest speakers at the meeting included Staff Sergeant Michel Anderson of the London City Police Service, Doug MacRae, Director of Transportation for the City of London, Dr. Colin Evans, Trauma Team Leader, of the London Health Sciences Centre Emergency Department, and Zygmunt Gorski, a road safety and collision reconstruction consultant in the London area. Each speaker was given a short opportunity to present their opening remarks before the floor was put to comments and questions from local residents.
With respect to my input I focused my preliminary comments on my background as few persons in the room knew who I was. There was a purposeful reason why I mentioned that, in school I was introduced to the research of Sigmund Freud. (This was not a topic that most wanted to hear.)
In grade school the system decided to change my name to “Sigmond”, where I had no choice in that decision. I went through school recognizing that I had a strange name that no one else had. But then I came across the name “Sigmund Freud” and it caught my curiosity simply because he was the only one I found who shared my name. I told the audience that I went to London’s Central library and discovered 80 manuals describing his research, and so I started reading about psychoanalysis.
Very few in the room likely wanted to hear these “off topic”, personal comments. And one person stood up and actually said “move on”. But there was a reason for my comments as I will explain.
A large part of the road safety issue is actually an assessment of human behavior. And psychiatrists and psychologists are the scientists who study that behavior. What I learned from Freud and psychoanalysis is that humans behave in complex ways. Their motivations and triggers are often unknown, even to themselves. And the opinions that persons express about road safety are filled with those unrecognized motivations and triggers. Like in so many other aspects of life, persons develop emotional attachments to their beliefs. Yet those emotional attachments are often what prevent an unbiased recognition of road safety problems and the corrections needed to fix them.
The other “off topic” point I tried to make is that during my psychology training I was exposed to the complexities and pitfalls of scientifically studying human behavior. I was introduced to studies of researchers who attempted to elicit some credible response from their subjects and how the methodology needed to be well thought out. Biases are created when something in the experiment causes the subject to provide a response due to something unintentionally brought into the process that fouled up the result. So as a result of my psychology training I was acutely aware that one must be careful about conclusions drawn from human responses to various scenarios. Again, this portion of my discussion was not appreciated by most of the audience.
The purpose of conducting scientific experiments is to cause the response of someone, or something, and that response is not predetermined by the experimenter. Indeed an unbiased experimenter does not decide, a priory, what the result will be. Instead the experimenter reviews the results, confirms that they have been obtained in an unbiased manner, and then concludes something from those results. This is the methodology of legitimate science. Unfortunately such rigorous attention to avoid bias is not the focus of most persons attending community meetings.
So as I continued through my presentation I mentioned several times that objective data is needed to understand whether a road safety problem exists in Old North. It was also necessary to obtain some information about the characteristics of such a problem.
In the previous discussions by Sergeant Anderson and Doug MacRae I felt there was a lack of transfer of objective data to the audience. And the residents did not press them for such data.
One comment made by Sergeant Anderson is that his team set up an observational device, just a short time prior to the Safety Meeting, he called an “armadillo” which was described as a video camera mounted on a long pole. No photo was shown to demonstrate what this device looked like. This was set-up at the intersection of Colborne and St James for period of about 11 days. Returned data included observations of over 40,000 vehicles and an average speed was reported somewhere in the range of 44 km/h. Although this could be useful data details about it were missing. And nothing written was prepared for residents to examine. Many questions about this report should have evolved but they did not.
From my viewpoint, an important question should have arisen about the results obtained in my video Session #2 of September 30, 2022. In that session I documented a number of “Unusual Actions” of drivers at the Colborne and St James intersection and the table below is presented again from my previous article.
The information that should have been obtained from Sergeant Anderson is whether the 11 days of observations at the same site demonstrated similar confusions by drivers. The above data was obtained in only 2 hours of observations which is much shorter than the 11 days of police documentations. So what did the police observe and was it similar to the results in the above table?
I had previously noted that I also conducted a follow-up video session on July 11, 2025 where I documented essentially no unusual behaviours and the traffic volume was low along both Colborne and St James. My comment was that one has to be careful about selecting documentations that could reflect potential safety problems since a lazy day in July does not reflect what conditions exist on a busy day like September 30th. So did Sergeant Anderson believe that the data he collected properly reflected the safety problems that might exist at the intersection? Unfortunately that important question was not asked.
If I heard the numbers correctly and over 40,000 vehicles were documented in 11 days, then on an average day there would have been just over 3600 vehicle observations. Yet the traffic volume data provided by the City indicates that 4,500 vehicles travel on Colborne Street per day north of St James and that value increases to 6,500 per day south of St James. So the 3600 vehicles registered in the police documentations would appear to be lower than the typical traffic volume. So does this suggest that the police data was obtained when traffic volumes were unusually low, and therefore traffic conflicts would be less likely to reveal themselves? Unfortunately this question was not posed to Sergeant Anderson.
At least one resident had questions about the video system described by Sergeant Anderson and whether it could be installed in the Old North community to document traffic. Such an approach would be very useful if the details of how the results were obtained were accompanied by the results and provided to residents for their consideration. I did not hear a firm commitment from the Sergeant about this possibility.
Doug MacRae promised that City staff were examining the Old North neighbourhood and some new programs were in the works. But no details were provided and there was nothing given in a written form for residents to consider.
Dr. Colin Evans also provided his views on how the community should approach safety issues in their neighbourhood. I was gratified to hear him mention the issue of active transportation, including cycling, as these are important matters that require a change in our transportation habits. Colin’s experience with the injuries that persons present a the City’s hospitals emphasized that safety habits such as helmets for cyclists may not prevent all injuries but they lessen their severity. This has also been my experience, not only in cycling, but in traffic safety at large.
An important point is that collision data possessed by the City of London and its police force is incomplete. There is good information about fatal collisions and those involving serious injuries, but that information is not shared with the public and therefore of limited help. There is less information about injuries and collisions as we move into lower levels of severity, yet the numbers of these lower-severity incidents are far greater than those of serious injury and fatality. Colin made an important point that he is interested in those “near miss” incidents that never make it to the official accounts. Those non-reported incidents can provide further information about the relative transportation safety of persons in the Old North neighbourhood. Colin has a different perspective because his emergency departments capture those incidents where injuries occur that are not officially reported. Public disclosure of such data would help to provide a better understanding of what is happening in the community. Yet this emergency department data is not well linked with the collision data that identifies important parameters such as collision severity and what factors caused or increased the severity of injury.
For a number of years Transport Canada provided the funding for “multi-disciplinary accident research teams” that conducted detailed studies of these relationships. Such a team was stationed at Western University and I worked there between 1980 and 1990. My regular duties involved detailed examinations of collision-involved vehicles whereby measurements and photographs were taken of evidence such as the magnitude and location of vehicle crush and the points within a vehicle interior where occupants made contact. We obtained medical data from the treating hospitals and then we would match the injuries to the occupant contacts found within or outside the vehicle. An important point is that the collision severity was also estimated through objective, collision-reconstruction procedures, taking into account momentum, energy dissipation and the details of physical evidence interpretation. It is this type of evidence that could be linked to the medical data collected at hospital emergency departments.
At the Old North Safety Meeting personal experiences were expressed by a number of residents and these demonstrated some potential safety problems. Unfortunately the experience of single individuals cannot provide a clear picture of the magnitude of a problem in the general neighbourhood. So again, it is important, from my viewpoint, that objective data be obtained from the neighbourhood and shared with residents.
Other residents were present who had professional credentials in transportation, urban planning and research methods. These persons provided some valuable comments. It would be beneficial if these persons kept an interest in the developments in Old North as their input could steer the community in the proper direction.
E-Scooter Collisions & Injuries Keep Rising
Recent data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) has revealed the large increase in injuries to riders of e-scooters throughout Canada. While such information was reported by many official news media the average citizen or rider of an e-scooter rarely gets to see the specifics of that data. While the CIHI is funded by Canadian Medical Association its data remains closed to those who have special permission to examine the data.
E-scooters, much like e-bikes are becoming more popular on roadways and on municipal sidewalks. While their speeds are supposed to be governed to below 32 km/h many are observed travelling at higher speeds. Because of these speeds they are more difficult for drivers of motor vehicles to detect. In many instances e-riders do not wear helmets while they also may not require much understanding of what situations could cause them harm. Combined with the secrecy surrounding injury data this spells for many unnecessary collisions and serious injuries.
Old North London Traffic Safety Meeting
London Ward 6 Councillor Sam Trosow has organized a meeting entitled “Traffic Safety In Old North” to be held at the St John Evangelist Church, 280 St James Street in London between 1830 and 2030 hours. Zygmunt Gorski will be one of the four guests at the meeting. Official news media such as CTV News suggest the meeting has to do with “cut through” traffic, probably a concern expressed by local residents. The exact nature of the concerns will likely be revealed at the meeting. Sam Trosow is aware of the activities of Gorski Consulting and that a traffic study was conducted in the Old North area a couple of years ago at the intersection of Colborne and St James Streets and this is likely why Zygmunt Gorski was invited to participate in the meeting.
As the 2-hour meeting is likely to involve short introductions and discussions from each of the four participants it unlikely that details about the activities of Zygmunt Gorski or Gorski Consulting will be revealed in sufficient detail. It is not possible to explain what road safety activities Zygmunt Gorski has been involved in for the past 44 years while also focusing on what research has been conducted in Old North. Thus this additional article has been prepared to fill in some of the details.
What Is “Old North”
Old North is a loose term defining an area of London north of its downtown. It is a central district of London characterized by older homes. Our understanding is that Old North is a loose term that may have a different definition from one person to the next. Whatever the definition however, much of Old North exists in Councillor Trosow’s Ward 6.
The boundarys of Ward 6 are Adelaide Street to the east, Oxford Street to the south, Wonderland Road to the West and the north branch of the Thames River to the north. This Ward would encompass the grounds of Western University. There are proposed changes to Wards in London which are scheduled to take effect November 15, 2026. It appears that Ward 6 will maintain its present boundaries.
The loose term “Old North” is encompassed by portions of Ward 6 but it might also be argued that it includes portions of Ward 13 which is located generally south of Ward 6. Ward 13 would take in areas south of Oxford Street such as the Woodfield community north of Queens Ave and streets such as Waterloo, Colborne, Maitland and William south of Oxford that have been understood to be part of “Old North”.
In 2022 and 2023 Gorski Consulting conducted a traffic study within the Old North area at the intersection of Colborne Street and St James Street. It is expected that some of the results of that study will be discussed at the July 23rd Traffic Safety Meeting however there is likely to be insufficient time to properly discuss the study. Details of the study can be found in a number of articles posted to the Gorski Consulting website (www.gorskiconsulting.com). Four articles were posted in 2022 (September 7, October 7, 15 and 24). Another 16 articles were posted in 2023 between April 20 and October 10, 2023.
The purpose of the study was to examine the conditions of Colborne Street as a new, painted, cycling lane was to be created. Some residents expressed concerns that it was not a protected lane like the one south of Oxford. The specific location of the study was on Colborne Street just north of St James Street, as shown in the Googlemaps view below. It was decided that the study would be limited to northbound traffic only.
In the fall of 2022, before creation of the painted cycling lane, multiple video cameras were placed along Colborne Street within a 100-metre zone commencing 15 metres north of St James Street. Three video sessions were conducted; September 20, 30 and October 5, 2022. Analysis of the video caused the calculation of motor vehicle speed and traffic volumes, as shown in the figure below. This figure shows results from Session #2 of northbound motor vehicle traffic only. It is a comparison between the first 50 metres (zero to 50 metres) and the second 50 metres ( 50 to 100 metres) within the area of study. The posted maximum speed in this area is 40 km/h.
In the spring of 2023 orange markers were painted in the northbound lane of Colborne Street within the same study area but only for a distance of 50 metres.
As motor vehicles and cyclists passed by the rows of markers the video cameras documented their lateral position within the lane as well as the lateral distance between them. An example of this is the southward view of Colborne Street shown below.
Three video sessions were completed on April 12, 14 and June 8, 2023 whereby the paths of cyclists and motor vehicles were documented before the painted cycling lane was created. Details of these motions were reported in several articles posted to the Gorski Consulting website in the spring and summer of 2023.
By mid-July, 2023 the City of London was making preparations to paint the cycling lane, as shown in the image below. The southbound lane was re-surfaced, the position of the roadway centre-line was to be moved and a preliminary, dashed, white line was painted through the markers that were previously painted by Gorski Consulting, as shown below.
A further video session was completed on August 29, 2023 after the cycling lane was permanently in place. Once again the details of cyclist and motor vehicle paths were documented and reported in articles posted to the Gorski Consulting website between August 28 and October 10, 2023. The image below shows the conditions existing on August 29, 2023 after the painting of the permanent cycling lane.
Following the completion of analysis the lateral positions of traffic units passing through the site was averaged and a comparison was made between the data before the creation of the cycling lane and after. The table below summarizes the lateral paths of motor vehicles and cyclists during incidents where a cyclist was being passed within the study zone. The average shown in this table refers to the distance between the right edge of the lane (edge of concrete gutter) and the right wheel of the traffic unit. For cycles that do not have right and left wheels the distance was taken to the centre of the front wheel.
As can be seen in the above table this research shows that, overall, motorized traffic units rode further away from the right side of the lane (i.e. further away from the curb or concrete gutter) after the painting of the permanent cycling lane. It also shows that, after the painting of the permanent cycling lane, cyclists tended to ride closer to the right side of the lane (i.e. closer to the curb or concrete gutter). Thus the cyclists were more separated from motorized traffic after the painting of the cycling lane. This is generally a desirable result.
The variance in these vehicle paths (Standard Deviation) was also reduced for all units after the painting of the cycling lane except for light duty vehicles. This result would necessitate further study.
While this study revealed some improvements for cyclist safety there are many safety concerns with cycling infrastructure in London that have not been discussed. However these matters must be left undiscussed in this present article.
Findings Relevant to Old North Traffic Safety Meeting
While the traffic study at Colborne and St James was for the purpose of studying the creation of a new cycling lane the cameras also captured traffic safety issues that were not of direct interest at that time. These safety issues may be relevant to the upcoming safety meeting regarding Old North London.
In total, 7 video sessions were conducted in 2022-23 by Gorski Consulting north of the intersection of Colborne and St James. Indirectly some of the cameras captured traffic passing through the intersection. Zygmunt Gorski was present during all of these sessions and was able to observe the traffic situations. While reporting on the findings from the second video session (Session #2; September 30, 2022) the following comments were made in our Gorski Consulting article of October 24, 2022:
“The table below shows the relationship between motor vehicle volume and speed at 10-minute intervals while comparing the south road segment with the north road segment.
For example, in the first 10 minutes of observations (1607 to 1617 hours) 50 northbound vehicles passed through the observation area. The average speed of those vehicles passing through the south road segment was 39.96 km/h. The average speed of motor vehicles passing through the north road segment was 41.28 km/h. We can also note that in the first hour of observations the average speed of vehicles travelling through the south road segment was 41.95 km/h while the average through the north segment was 42.83 km/h.
There was a marked increase in motor vehicle speeds in the last 40 minutes of observations (noted by the red colour of the values in the above table). This would be a time between 1727 and 1807 hours. It can be noted that during this 40 minutes the average,10-minute, traffic volume was reduced to 32 vehicles whereas the average for the previous hour and twenty minutes was 39.4 vehicles.
It was noted that many traffic disruptions developed from the intersection at St James Street. Many motor vehicles entered Colborne Street from St James but also many motor vehicles exited Colborne at this intersection. As a result some consideration had to be given to the difference between “free flow” traffic on Colborne versus “non-free flow” traffic.
Of the 225 northbound motor vehicles that were observed in the first hour of documentation it was noted that 167 of them experienced “free flow” motion and their average speed was 43.14 km/h in the south segment and 43.54 km/h in the north segment. Of the 218 northbound motor vehicles that were observed in the second hour of documentation it was noted that 138 of them experienced “free flow” motion and their average speed was 44.97 km/h in the south segment and 47.28 km/h in the north segment. The reduced number of vehicles experiencing free flow in second hour should have produced slower average speeds yet this did not occur, particularly in the north road segment. So It may suggest something different about the speed of traffic in the latter portion of this testing.
A flavour for the types of obstructions to traffic on Colborne can be gained by examining the smaller sample of 57 northbound vehicles that experienced “non-free-flow” motion in the first hour of documentations and these are shown in the long table below.
(Note: Due to the size of the table it has not been included here but can be observed in the original article posted on the Gorski Consulting website on October 24, 2022)
The observations high-lighted in yellow represent vehicles that entered Colborne from St James. Since documentation began only 15 metres north of the St James intersection the speed of these vehicles would have to be low as they would just be completing their turns. So this is the reason why we determined that they could not be counted as free flow vehicles.
As can be seen in the above table there were many reasons why the free flow of northbound vehicles did not occur. Another major reason was that pedestrians crossed at the pedestrian crossing located on the south side of the intersection with St James. As such northbound vehicles had to come to a stop and this caused their speeds to be slower as they passed through the south road segment.
A surprising revelation occurred as we were present monitoring the video cameras near the St James intersection. We observed unusual behaviors by many drivers who seemed to be confused by whether they had the right-of-way. For example, drivers on both roadways appeared to believe that this was a 4-way stop. This was evidenced on several occasions as drivers on St James drove into traffic on Colborne as if they expected that the Colborne traffic was going to stop at the intersection. Similarly we observed several drivers on Colborne Street come to a stop at St James for no reason, as if they believed that there was a stop sign for their direction of travel. These unusual behaviours resulted in several close calls where collisions were barely avoided.“
After the above observations were made with respect to Session #2 an additional session video session (Session #3) was run in 2022 and four other video sessions were conducted in 2023. Articles discussing the 2023 sessions were focused on the results relating to the new cycling lane. Some of these sessions, such as those on June 8 and August 29, 2023, contained good views of the intersection of Colborne and St James. These sessions also encompassed the afternoon rush hour when traffic conflicts would likely be increased. Up to this time no specific analysis has been done to study the video for conflicts which may be relevant to the Old North Traffic Safety Meeting.
The July 23, 2025 Safety Meeting would benefit from further information about the traffic conflicts documented at Colborne and St James. As such Gorski Consulting re-examined some of the video and conducted additional analysis.
As mentioned previously, in Session #2 there were a number of instances where drivers seemed to be confused whether they had the right-of-way as they approached the intersection. This general comment has now been followed by a more specific analysis of the number of occasions where this confusion occurred. This is shown in the table below.
There may be time during the Safety Meeting to show the video of some of these occurrences. However two frames from the video are shown below where collisions almost occurred.
The video from Session #2 was also re-examined to produce some data on the volume of vehicles on St James Street, their travel directions and what actions were taken at the intersection with Colborne Street. This data was separated into 10 minute intervals for the full two hours of documentation, as shown in the table below.
The above table shows that the majority of vehicles travelling on St James either travelled directly straight through the intersection or they turned to travel southbound onto Colborne. There were very few vehicles that turned to travel northward on Colborne. For example, of the 294 observations, only 25 vehicles turned to travel northbound on Colborne.
There was no specific pattern as to when vehicles arrived at the intersection during the two hours of documentation. Although one might be tempted to believe that less vehicles arrived in the last half hour (approximately 1730 to 1800 hrs), as would be expected.
The 294 vehicles observed on St James Street in the two hours of documentation is a fairly large volume for a roadway that would likely be defined as a local street. It would lead to the belief that many of these vehicles were “cutting through” the neighbourhood as suggested by some residents. However, these data are small and are only a short “snapshot” of what is occurring at this intersection.
Summary
This article has presented some information about the traffic study undertaken by Gorski Consulting in 2022 and 2023. focused on the painted cycling lane that was created along Colborne Street near St James Street. It also provides some additional data about possible safety concerns at the intersection that may be relevant to the upcoming meeting regarding Traffic Safety in the neighbourhood of Old North London.
Whatever concerns may be expressed at the upcoming meeting decisions about what actions should be taken need to flow from properly detailed data that should be gathered at those locations where residents believe there are safety concerns. The gathering of such data should normally be the jurisdiction of London Transportation Department employees and the London Police Force. And such data should be made available to local residents.
it is known that the City of London operates mobile video units that it installs at selected locations in the City. The video from such mobile units can be delivered to private sector analysis firms that use artificial intelligence algorithms to provide information about traffic conflicts at a specific site.
UPDATE: Results From Further Video Session on July 11, 2025
Earlier in this article data was presented regarding the traffic volume on St James Street at Colborne Street from our video session of September 30, 2022 (Session #2). Subsequently we returned to the site on July 11, 2025 and conducted another video session between 1600 and 1730 hours. This time of day was very similar to the September 30, 2022 session which was conducted between 1607 and 1807 hours. The purpose of this additional session was to see if the results would be similar between the two sessions. The traffic volume data from the July 11, 2025 session is shown in the table below.
What was noticeable in this latest session is that the traffic volumes on both roadways were greatly reduced. No official analysis was conducted for traffic volume on Colborne Street but it was obvious, both from being present at the site and then again which reviewing the video, that the traffic volume was reduced. As to the volume on St James Street the previous table shown earlier can be compared to the table above and the numbers clearly show the reduction traffic volume. Since the video on July 11, 2025 was only from 1600 to 1730 hours the same time frame is used in the September 30, 2022 session where the last half hour is not used in the comparison. The numbers below provide a summary of those differences.
Total Traffic Volume
Total traffic volume on St James: Sept 30/22 1607 to 1737 hours = 251 motor vehicles
Total traffic volume on St James: Jul 11/25 1600 to 1730 hours = 162 motor vehicles
Westbound Traffic Volume
Westbound traffic volume on St James: Sept 30/22 1607 to 1737 hours = 140 motor vehicles
Westbound traffic volume on St James: Jul 11/25 1600 to 1700 hours = 70 motor vehicles
Eastbound Traffic Volume
Eastbound traffic volume on St James: Sept 30/22 1607 to 1737 hours = 111 motor vehicles
Eastbound traffic volume on St James: Jul 11-25 1600 to 1730 hours = 92 motor vehicles
The largest change in the traffic volume data would appear to be in the westbound traffic where there were only half as many vehicles on July 11th as compared to September 30th.
It is also noticeable about the westbound traffic on September 30th is that about equal numbers of vehicles made left turns onto Colborne as those that travelled straight through the intersection. In contrast, on July 11th, almost three times as many vehicles travelled straight through the intersection versus those that made left turns.
The differences in this data provide an educational warning that the results from any study need to be studied carefully as to when the study was made. Data will change depending on what time of day the observations were made. But the data will also change depending on what day of the week the study was made. And the data will also depend on the season in which the study was made. If one were presented with the data from July 11th alone one might conclude that the site contained nothing of concern as no traffic conflicts were registered. But this was a lazy day in July. Meanwhile the data from September 30th showed a much different result. So for those who are presented with seemingly reliable data, it is important to scrutinize exactly what it means and if it supports what an expert may conclude from it.
Years of Training Required to Know How to Kill a Cyclist
For years various municipal transportation departments have been obsessed with stopping the public from entering areas of road closure because of the danger. So they put up even more dangerous structures at the head of these road closures. The City of London is no exception.
For years the City of London has been erecting Portable Concrete Barriers (PCBs) across its roadways in an attempt to stop traffic from entering areas that are under construction. As an example the following photos of such an installation were taken on May 29, 2014 on the north end of Ridout Street on approach to the Blackfriars Bridge in downtown London.
PCBs are not benign structures, especially for unprotected road users such as cyclists. In a real-life collision reconstructed by Gorski Consulting a number of years ago, a cyclist approached such a barrier placed across the roadway in a semi-rural area near the northern municipality of New Liskeard Ontario. Two PCBs were placed perpendicular and side-by-side in such a manner that they spanned the complete width of the roadway. A cycle rider approaching them was unable to stop in time and attempted to steer around them but the rider’s left leg caught the end of one of the concrete barriers. The rider ended up in an adjacent field with his leg resting on his left ear while he attempted to assess what happened. Fortunately he had a cellphone with him and was conscious enough to call for help otherwise he might of bled to death after many hours of agony. Incidents like these are not common but they demonstrate the need to understand how a dangerous road closure can become even more dangerous when proper signage and structures are not put in place on the approach to a road closure. Those in the important position of protecting the public from danger must have the proper training, experience and common sense to understand how to lessen a danger rather than increase it.
The Ontario Traffic Manual is a set of manuals dealing with a variety of traffic subjects. One of these manuals is entitled “Book 7: Temporary Conditions”. This book deals with construction zones. With respect to Portable Concrete Barriers the manual states explicitly:
“Where temporary concrete barriers are used, the following guidelines and specifications apply:
Temporary concrete barriers must not be placed perpendicular to the direction of travel
and are not intended to be used across a highway for a highway closure.“
Even if a professional transportation practitioner was unfamiliar with Book 7, which would be highly unusual, common sense should indicate that an impact with an immovable object will cause more harm because the severity of an impact will be increased. So the potential for increased severity of injury will also be more probable.
It is notable that this PCB barrier is adjacent to Watson Park where the official news media have reported on the large encampment of homeless persons and how washroom facilities were temporarily removed by the City. Considerable outrage was expressed by many citizens for how inhumanely these homeless persons were being treated. Yet, as many homeless persons ride bikes, there was no understanding expressed that these persons could also be injured or killed by the PCB installation. Those passing through the area who may not know the details of the TVP might also be surprised by the presence of the PCB.
Not much concern is publicly expressed by this PCB installation because there is no public announcement of any cyclist collisions happening there. However it is well-known in official circles that cyclist collisions are not publicly revealed unless there is a fatality or someone sustains life-threatening injuries. And many uninformed cyclists would easily blame themselves for their collision with such a barrier without realizing that the installation itself is dangerous. This is how many transportation dangers become unreported and continue to exist without anyone being accountable for them.
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