Greater Sudbury pedestrian collision report sparks criticism

Morning North6:50Concerns over Sudbury's pedestrian safety report

A city staff report on pedestrian safety got a lot of people talking this week... and it wasn't all good. Ernst Gerhardt joined us in studio to talk about why he took the time to go through the report and make annotations on it to point out flaws.

A parent in Sudbury is calling for a city staff report on pedestrian collisions to be redone.

Ernst Gerhardt says he's spoken to some councillors about the report he says has discrepancies in the numbers. Plus, he said,some of the findings aren't backed up by evidence presented in the report.

"So if this information is not accurate, or not as accurate as it could be, if it's looking at the wrong things, it means that the policy decisions in the future based on this information could be misguided," he said.

Gerhardt said he was interested in the information because he walks his kids to school.

He noted the report shows there are almost as many pedestrian collisions in May as there are in November but says the findings don't explain why. The report only notes that daylight savings time may be a contributing factor in the fall, he said.

"So there's a bit of a logical error there it seems that could be teased out if more work was done," Gerhardt added.

A city councillor and the chair of the city committee that received the report, said the findings weren't meant to go into full detail about why pedestrian collisions happen.

"It's just where are they occurring, when are they occurring and what seems to be the cause," Robert Kirwan said.

He added the report is going to be reviewed by a steering committee that's focused on pedestrian safety this summer.

It will then be presented to councillors again in the fall.