Quebec's new road safety plan includes tougher fines, reduced speeds, increased surveillance
School zones are the focus of many of the new safety measures
With back-to-school just days away, the Quebec government on Tuesday unveiled a new plan to reduce the number of road accidents — and their severity — especially around school zones.
The road safety plan, which takes the form of 27 measures to be implemented over five years, includes tougher fines for offences against pedestrians and cyclists, reduced speeds in school zones and more photo radars.
Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault was joined by Education Minister Bernard Drainville Tuesday for the announcement of the $180-million plan — inspired by Vision Zero, a strategy first adopted in Sweden to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries.
Guilbault says 392 people died on Quebec roads last year. "We had also more serious injuries, more minor injuries compared to previous years," she said.
The transport minister says the new plan comes out of meetings with advocacy groups following the hit-and-run death of a seven-year-old Ukrainian refugee on her way to school last December.
"We had to act," Guilbault said.
As part of the plan, the government intends to reduce the maximum speed limit to 30 km/h in nearly every school zone in Quebec for more hours of the day and to improve signage. Right now, the speed limit of 30 km/h applies to a large majority of school zones in the province, but there are some where drivers are allowed to drive up to 50 km/h.
"The scientific studies are very, very clear on this: If you bring down the speed limit, you will also bring down the risk that there will be casualties around the school zones," said Drainville.
The government will also invest an additional $68 million, for a total of $140 million, for municipalities to carry out safety projects of their own for pedestrians and cyclists.
Guilbault says the number of photo radars on the province's roads — currently 54 — will be bumped up "significantly," but she didn't mention a specific number.
They will be deployed primarily in school zones and around construction sites, in hopes of preventing dangerous behaviour, and will be of the "highest technology," she says.
Fines and demerit points will also be increased for certain offences, particularly for those committed against "vulnerable road users," such as pedestrians, cyclists, children, seniors and road workers. Quebec's auto insurance agency, the SAAQ, will help determine what those new penalties are.
The province also plans to require more training for a Class A commercial trucking licence. It also intends to organize training activities on good road practices, including rolling out a major road safety campaign and the ongoing review of driving course content.
Guilbault says all the regulatory changes will be proposed in a bill likely to be tabled this fall.
Step in right direction
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante deemed the Vision Zero plan "a good first step" on social media following Tuesday's announcement.
"Our administration has been working in this direction for a long time. To see Quebec adopting this vision is excellent news," she said.
Sophie Mauzerolle, Montreal's executive committee member responsible for transport and mobility, said the city welcomed the new stance the province is taking toward road safety: shifting the emphasis toward protecting pedestrians and cyclists.
"[The plan] was very necessary and very urgent in the context that we just went through the deadliest year ever on our roads everywhere in Quebec but also in Montreal," Mauzerolle said.
Sandrine Cabana-Degani, general manager of Piétons Québec, a group that advocates for pedestrians, says expectations for the plan are high, and she is pleased to see that the transport minister listened to her group's requests.
The United Steelworkers, which represents more than 1,000 road construction-site workers in Quebec, also welcomed the plan, but said it could go even further. It suggested doubling the fines and demerit points for offences committed in road construction zones, stricter standards for the operation of a road site and sky-high fines for companies that do not respect them.
"We lost one of our colleagues at work last July, the latest in an already long list of deaths. For the zero-deaths vision to really come true, measures with teeth will have to be in place before the next road construction season in March," said Nicolas Lapierre, the assistant to the Quebec director of the Steelworkers.
Étienne Grandmont, Québec Solidaire's transport and sustainable mobility critic, said the strategy has been a long time coming but lacks accountability from the province for the part of the road network it operates.
"No less than two-thirds of fatal accidents take place on the upper network (highways, national and regional roads)," Grandmont said in a statement.
"The ministry must assume its responsibilities and propose safety improvements, at its own expense, on all its roads."