Blackfriars Bridge – Some Background Prior to Traffic Study
Blackfriars Bridge, looking west, in March, 2022. This historic structure in London, Ontario, is the focus of a City of London Long-Term Usage Study to be completed likely before 2023. In the interim Gorski Consulting is preparing an independent traffic study that can be used to compare with the City’s official results.
After Blackfriars Bridge was refurbished in December 2018, the City of London stopped motor vehicle access to it in April 2020, due to concerns over physical distancing due to the CIVID-19 pandemic. In November 2021 the bridge was reopened to eastbound, motorized traffic despite a petition, signed by over 500 residents, requesting that the bridge remain closed to motorized traffic.
Some of the concerns expressed by the petition organizer, Chris DeGroot, were that “users of the bridge are not comfortable with getting squeezed to the sides while cars whiz past”. Safety of users of all ages and abilities was a general concern but also usage of the bridge by heavier motor vehicles could mean that repairs would have to be made again in the not too distant future. Neither the City or nor the signers of the petition provided any objective data to support their decisions. Although the City indicated they would complete a usage study it remains unknown to what degree detailed data of that study will be released for the public’s consideration.
City officials were quoted as saying that the opening of Blackfriars Bridge to motorized traffic was due to the loosening of pandemic restrictions and changes in the usage patterns along the Thames Valley Parkway (TVP) which crosses just east of the bridge. It was suggested that the pandemic caused higher usage of the TVP adding concerns about conflicts with motorized traffic. But as the pandemic has receded the usage of the TVP has returned to more normal activity.
Garfield Dales, Manager of Transportation Planning and Design commented that “Early in the pandemic, we did see a lot of folks out using the parks and the trail network in that area. That’s really what led to the closing at that point in time”. This comment would imply that the City had conducted usage studies of the TVP at the Blackfriars Bridge yet nothing has been made publicly available as to how those studies were conducted, when they were conducted and what the specific results were. This is the type of lack of cooperation with public awareness that suggests that the future, long-term, usage study will also provide very little specifics to the public.
Comments made by City of London officials suggest that studies have been made of the usage of the Thames Valley Parkway where it crosses the east end of Blackfriars Bridge. Yet there has never been any public release of those details. Conflicts such as the one shown in this photo need to be known to understand what needs to be done about usage restrictions on the bridge.
The lines of sight provided near the east end of the Blackfriars Bridge could be of concern. As shown in the above photo fencing, along with the bridge supports, result in limited opportunities for drivers of eastbound motor vehicles to see the approach of higher speed users on the TVP such as cyclists and joggers. If the speed of motorized vehicles is relatively low then this could minimize the concern. Also if there are very few motorized vehicles this also reduces the exposure. The number of conflicts and the severity of consequences of a collision are unknown because no useful data has been made publicly available. But that will change with the study to be completed shortly by Gorski Consulting.
While conducting preliminary examinations of camera positions Gorski Consulting has made some preliminary, video observations of traffic. During four visits to the site a total of 1.5 hours of video was completed. During this time only 64 vehicles were documented crossing the bridge. This is a very small traffic volume.
View, looking north, to the north side of Blackfriars Bridge where a GoPro camera has been mounted to the bridge railing. The camera is pointing at an orange line painted on the eastbound lane of the bridge. By noting the time taken for vehicles to pass between these markings an average speed is obtained.
Close-up view of video camera mounted to the railing of Blackfriars bridge. This camera documents the passage of vehicles across a painted marking in the eastbound lane allowing for calculations of average speed.
A test was conducted of our camera locations on May 19, 2022 which were positioned to document the speed of eastbound vehicles as they crossed Blackfriars Bridge. Over a time of 36 minutes 29 vehicle observations were made and their speeds were determined over three, 25-metre segments approaching the TVP. Approaching eastward along the bridge the average speed of motorized vehicles in these segments was 28.1, 29.0 and 25.4 km/h respectively. Two vehicles were observed travelling at over 40 km/h. This is the kind of data that will be useful once a full documentation of motor-vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians is made in the up-coming, official study. Our preliminary observations suggest that there are a large number of users of the TVP crossing at the east end of the bridge and therefore there is a need to consider the number of conflicts. This especially so when more users are riding on faster e-bike, motorized scooters and similar units that may provide minimal opportunity to detect their approach into the crossing.
Blackfriars Bridge Study Postponed Due to Weather
Should the historic Blackfriars bridge in London, Ontario be closed to motor vehicle traffic? That was a question debated by many Londoners in the fall of 2021. To enhance the discussion Gorski Consulting decided to conduct an independent traffic study of the site examining facts such as motor vehicle, cyclist and pedestrians volumes, as well as their speeds and visibility.
Thursday, May 26, 2022 was planned to be the day when official observations of traffic were to be conducted by Gorski Consulting at the site of the Blackfriars bridge in London, Ontario. Unfortunately weather forecasts kept predicting that the day would be washed out. Even on May 25th weather forecasters continued to report a 60 percent chance of rain. So the testing had to be postponed. Yet, as May 26th came around it was not rainy at all. There were some relatively high winds but almost no rain. So there it goes.
Our study has been postponed to another date in the not too distant future.
Dangerous Police Traffic Stop Standing in Live Lane
Police must be properly instructed on the dangers of traffic stops next to multi-lane highways and expressways. This example of an officer standing in a live lane is extremely dangerous to the officer regardless of the “slow down and move over law” in Ontario.
A police force posted a photo (shown above) of one of its officers who stopped a speeding vehicle at an undisclosed location outside of Toronto, Ontario. The officer is seen standing in a live lane while at the driver’s window of the offender’s vehicle. The scenario depicted here is very dangerous as it provides no protection to the officer should a vehicle travel at highway speed in that live lane. While Ontario has enacted a “slow down and move over” law that should, theoretically, prevent drivers from driving in a lane next to a police traffic stop, the practical reality is that there are many instances where slowing and moving over cannot be achieved, especially where large transport trucks block the vehicle ahead. In emergency situations there are instances where police cannot always clear a live lane and that dangers exists. However in the case of traffic stops a driver of a vehicle that has been pulled over can be instructed by an officer to drive further away from a live lane before commencing discussions on a traffic infraction. The officer must also be instructed in using his/her vehicle as a blocking vehicle, positioning it at a proper distance, off-set and angle that it will give the officer the greatest opportunity to avoid major consequences. Also, where possible, an officer should stand on the right side of a stopped vehicle, not on the driver’s side, on high speed roadways and expressways.
Many safety scenarios can be demonstrated to officers at training facilities such as the Ontario Police College near Aylmer Ontario, where sufficient grounds have been available for decades. In the 1980’s I was instructing at the Ontario Police College at courses such as Advanced Accident Investigation. During my many encounters with the College’s traffic instructors Rick Fruin and Murray Turner I was provided with glimpses of how police were trained at the college. I observed some of the testing taking police on the old airport runways that were part of the College’s grounds. I also had an opportunity to conduct some of my own tests using the College’s vehicles and grounds as shown below.
The Ontario Police College near Aylmer, Ontario has been training new police recruits for decades. In the example shown here, from 1993, a specially rigged vehicle is shown that enabled ease of documenting the commencement of skid marks during maximum braking tests. The vehicle garage of the College is shown in the background.
In this example taken from some of my testing in 1993, the College’s test vehicle has completed a high-speed braking test on one of the runways on the College grounds.
As the police community is close-knit and somewhat closed it is unclear what training is being conducted in the present day to keep officers safety in their traffic duties. But constant reminders need to be given to officers and their actions need to be monitored for their own safety.
US Reports Over 10% Increase In Traffic Deaths in 2021 – But No Info In Ontario
What caused a collision is not the same as what caused a fatality. The factor(s) that cause a person’s death are never revealed in collision reporting in Ontario. This secrecy causes a lack of understanding in the general population of what changes need to be made to improve road traffic safety.
The inefficiency of documentation and distribution of collision data in the Province of Ontario is revealing when compared to what is done in the U.S.
Just five months after the end of 2021 the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is able to provide an estimate of the numbers of traffic deaths in the county that has a population almost 10 times the size of Canada. Yet the Province of Ontario still stumbles along with attempts to reveal final data from the year 2019.
An important notice from NHTSA is that fatalities increased substantially in 2021 as noted in their newly released documentation:
“NHTSA projects that an estimated 42,915 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes last year, a 10.5% increase from the 38,824 fatalities in 2020. The projection is the highest number of fatalities since 2005 and the largest annual percentage increase in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System’s history.
Preliminary data reported by the Federal Highway Administration show that vehicle miles traveled in 2021 increased by about 325 billion miles, or about 11.2%, as compared to 2020.”
Why are these increases occurring despite the fact that many new safety features are coming into the modern vehicle fleet? Are they related to higher usage of the road system? Can the increases be blamed on the Covid pandemic? Are other factors at play?
In Ontario there is no current information about basic road safety trends. Even those data that are revealed in Ontario’s Road Safety Annual Report (ORSAR) provide no useful information about what causes injuries and deaths. ORSAR data is based on police reports written up mostly by officers who have limited time, training and understanding to explore the complexity that exists in typical collision causes. But more importantly, there is no expertise in understanding what has caused an injury or death, and when certain results should involve further investigation. And the Ontario Ministry of Transportation has no real interest in documenting causes of injury and death.
In many instances relatively minor collisions result in fatalities yet there is not special interest in understanding why these occur. In Ontario the focus of police investigations is in laying charges against motor vehicle drivers, not in documenting how and why someone was injured or died. The police logic is that identifying injury mechanisms is not police work. This means that identifying ways to improve road user safety becomes inefficient.
Trends in collision causes have existed for decades without much official awareness. Loss-of-control events on two-lane highways that result in rollovers, tree/pole impacts or erroneously-described “head-on” impacts all have similar sources that are never discussed. Fatal, rear-end impacts on high-speed expressways are similarly ignored in terms of their possible related sources. This results in the existence of many unsafe, uncorrected conditions that continue to exist over many years.
Ultimately what is needed is high-quality, unbiased data. If this must come solely from police reports then improvements need to be made in the quality of that data including safe-guards against typical police-reporting bias. In this modern age where costs of producing photos and video are minute, collision data should be supplemented with these very cheap methods of providing objective support for what has been officially accepted into a large-scale database. When reliable data is created and analysed, and the findings are distributed in a timely fashion, an efficient system of detecting newly-emerging, road-safety trends becomes a useful tool for all of society’s benefit.
A Minor Collision, Your Vehicle Rolls Into Shallow Water and You Drown
Much like vehicle fires, rolling over into shallow water is something that appears of minimal importance when the incident results in minor or no injury. Yet too often it results in a drowning death.
An intersection collision reported by Dufferin OPP today, May 12, 2022, highlights the role that luck can play in either taking a life or saving it. The OPP provided two photos on its Twitter account showing the results of a collision that occurred on County Road 10 at its intersection with Mon Amaranth Townline, north-east of Toronto, Ontario. One photo, shown below, appears to show a Jeep that landed upside down in a small creek. The OPP noted: “Thankfully an off-duty OPP officer was first on scene and freed the driver and passenger who were trapped in the water”.
In the second photo, below, we see that the other vehicle narrowly missed entering the water and also stayed upright. This is how luck can make such a difference when a danger lurks.
Very little importance is given to small streams or ponds near roadways, particularly if they appear to be shallow. The logic continues to be that “if I drive into it, it can’t hurt me when it is only one foot deep”. How little we understand that in many loss-of-control events a vehicle does not stay on its wheels but rolls over. When a vehicle stops upside down the body part of an occupant that is closest to the ground is the head. And if the occupant cannot escape that position it can be extremely dangerous. Even a water depth of one foot can be extremely dangerous if you are entrapped in your seated position and your head is in that water. You might fight by lifting your head, over and over again, but eventually you will tire out. And if no help arrives you will slowly drown.
That is why proper roadside barriers are crucial in areas where there is water near a roadway. Such barriers need to be of proper strength and design, including a proper length so that a wayward vehicle cannot by-pass the barrier and enter the water. Unfortunately when near-drownings occur no mention is made of the status of the barriers that should have prevented a vehicle entering an area of water.
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