On Tuesday afternoon the sun was shining, and many kids had taken to the streets- on bikes, rollerblades and scoot- ers. Shrieks of laughter from a nearby playground filled the air as children came out to get reacquainted with the pleasures of playing outdoors in their shirt sleeves. They aren’t the only ones venturing outdoors with the change of season. Farmers are starting to make their wayto their fields to prepare for the planting season.
Last week, the Ontario Fed- eration of Agriculture hosted a webinar about farm vehicles on the road. The speaker was a representative of Good Roads, an Ontario association launched in 1894 with 428 municipal and 21 First Nations members dedi- cated to improving municipal roads and infrastructure across the province. It is focused on the quality and the design of roads in order to improve road safety. The scale of the issue is daunting. There are 303,000 km of lanes in Ontario. To replace this infrastructure today would cost more than $117 billion, and just bringing it into a good state of repair would set authorities back almost $42 billion. Statistics indicate that rural roads are disproportion- ately more dangerous and are a source of significant liability for rural municipalities. In 2020, 55% of traffic fatalities in the province occurred in rural areas, despite the fact that these areas only accounted for 17% of the population.
Many of the organization’s recommendations to improve road safety address road de- sign: broader shoulders, rumble strips, roundabout intersections, bike and walking lanes. Those are public works decisions.
Back to the kids on bicycles. The best way to improve safety on the road for all users? Speed control. That requires patience behind the tractor lum- bering up the hill to the field, and caution as farm equipment enters the road from a laneway. Remember these equipment op- erators are just commuting to their places of work. Give them some space. That goes for the kids on bikes, too. KG
