Gorski Consulting was recently contacted by a residents’ group that expressed concerns over the safety of a roadway near a school where a pedestrian crossing was recently installed in London, Ontario. The site was located at the intersection of Wortley Road and Mountsfield Drive in the “Old South” neighbourhood of London. (A video frame taken from our study is shown above.) The issue of child safety near school zones is important and therefore Gorski Consulting agreed to conduct a study of the safety issues at the intersection.
The Googlemaps image below shows the site of the study with respect to the central portion of London, Ontario and its downtown. The area slightly to the north is also known as “Wortley Village” and is one of the more desirable residential locations in the City.
A closer view of the Wortley-Mountsfield area is shown in another Googlemaps image shown below. This view shows the location of the Mountsfield Public School and the orange circle shows the location of the intersection where the traffic study was conducted.
The safety of the Wortley-Mountsfield intersection needed to be examined during a time when children were entering or exiting the nearby elementary school, Mountsfield Public School. However because we did not become aware of this request until June 10th, there was little time as the school year would come to an end by June 25th. Never-the-less, we were able to complete two video sessions at the site, one on the afternoon of June 15th and a second one on the morning of June 22, 2026.
In both sessions the video documentation was completed with the use of six, synchronized, video cameras. Three of the cameras (GoPros) were positioned facing across Wortley Road so that the speed of vehicles on Wortley could be captured along two, 50-metre, road segments. In the June 15th session, GoPro40 was placed on the west side of Wortley Road at the pedestrian crossing, as shown in the photo below.
The yellow fire hydrant visible in the above photo was used as the arbitrary “Zero Point” for positioning video cameras at 50-metre distances to the north and south of the fire hydrant. At a location 50-metres to the north of the fire hydrant we positioned GoPro29 on the west roadside, facing east, so that it would show a painted marker that we created on the east sidewalk. A view of GoPro 29 is shown in the photo below. Also visible is JVC4, a camera positioned to look southward toward Mountsfield Drive and the pedestrian crossing.
A similar arrangement existed at 50 metres south of the pedestrian crossing where GoPro39 pointed across Wortley at a paint marker while JVC1 was positioned pointing northward along Wortley.
And finally the JVC2 camera was positioned on the north side of Mountsfield Drive and pointing westward toward the pedestrian crossing, as shown in the photo below.
Upon initial attendance at the site on June 15, 2026 it became apparent that the pedestrian crossing was not well visible because of the interplay between sun and shade caused by the large, roadside trees. The location of some of these trees can be seen in the Googlemaps view shown below.
Indications of this problem can be seen in the site photos below, taken on June 15, 2026.
In the image below a school bus is attempting to make a left turn to travel from the stop-signed Mountsfield Drive, to travel southward along Wortley Road. Tree branches are hanging too low so that the bus driver’s view of northward traffic is made more difficult and the driver is forced to put more attention to that portion of the roadway. This could prevent a good assessment of what objects (pedestrians) may be near the bus.
A discussion of the results from the video sessions at this site will be discussed in an upcoming website article which will be posted on this Gorski Consulting website in the near future.
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