Ottawa to Walkers: Drop Dead
This public-awareness ad released by the city of Ottawa is just one of many criticized for its graphic imagery, victim blaming, and use of the term “jaywalk.” (Source: City of Ottawa.)
Canada’s capital city of Ottawa is like virtually every North American city in that its streets are unsafe, especially for people outside motor vehicles. From 2016 to 2020, 110 people were killed in crashes in Ottawa, and 27 of those were on foot.
Ottawa is unlike a lot of other cities in that it recently found itself mired in controversy after running a series of graphic public-awareness ads as part of its ongoing road safety campaign. The one that elicited the most furor depicts a bloodied person lying in the road next to a car, and the caption, “You jaywalked to save time. But you lost it. Forever. Cross only where it’s safe.”
Amid public outcry about the ads’ graphic content, victim blaming, and use of the term “jaywalking,” which is not a crime in Ontario, citizen advocates and two city councilors swiftly demanded the ads be removed, which they were.
City staff have defended the ad and insist they will continue to run other ads in the series, 14 out of 18 of which focus on driver behavior. The ads are part of a multipronged road safety campaign by the city of Ottawa. One of these prongs is behavioral change, alongside traffic enforcement and street design changes. Public Works General Manager Alain Gonthier told CTV News, “The test ads are part of the developing education component, which has the ‘overall aim of de-normalizing unsafe road behaviour and developing a culture of road safety in Ottawa.’”
There’s only one problem: there is basically no evidence that these sorts of campaigns work. What would it mean to “de-normalize unsafe road behavior”? Anyone who regularly walks to get around a North American city already understands the danger they face from cars. It’s not a matter of being cavalier about it—it’s a matter of not having more acceptable options.
And for the driver’s part, there’s little to no indication that scolding drivers and urging them to be more attentive makes a meaningful difference in outcomes. “Start seeing motorcycles,” for example—a tagline that has been around for decades. Is there anyone who doesn’t try to see them? There are, in fact, studies finding that signs on freeways that display death tolls may actually induce more crashes, though the effect is small.
Ottawa doesn’t have a reckless pedestrian problem. And although some crashes are caused by reckless drivers, many others are caused by lapses of attention that could happen to almost anyone. Like virtually every North American city, what Ottawa actually has is a design priorities problem.
The Pedestrian Catch-22
The thing that really caught my attention about the Ottawa kerfuffle, which I haven’t seen addressed in news coverage, is the implication the “jaywalking” ad creates of an impossible Catch-22 for people who walk in Ottawa.
Strong Towns member Anton Lodder, on Twitter/X, pointed out this Catch-22 embedded in the city’s policy governing when pedestrian crossing signals are “warranted”:
Ottawa: "cross where it's safe"
— anton lodder (@antonlodder) September 9, 2023
also Ottawa: "at least 150 ppl need to cross in an 8-hr period for us to consider making a location safe"https://t.co/rlOBJIuLIv https://t.co/EAzMehLQw4
“Warrants” are a term used by traffic engineers to refer to standards for when an intersection should be signalized. They make sense in principle: it would be both insanely expensive and inconvenient for all users to put stoplights at the intersections of very low-traffic side streets, for example. So engineers typically want to see a minimum level of a certain type of traffic or activity in a location before they will deem traffic controls to be “warranted.”
But let’s consider what this means for people who walk.
Ottawa’s standards appear to indicate that on a roadway that carries 15,000 vehicles in 12 hours (that is, likely a decently busy stroad), a minimum of 150 pedestrians must attempt to cross in six hours for the city to consider installing a pedestrian signal.
The problem: if the site is currently unsafe to cross, people probably aren’t crossing in large numbers. I’ve heard the logic here compared to saying, “We obviously don’t need a bridge across this alligator-infested moat. There’s no demand for it. I haven’t seen a single person swimming!”
And those who are crossing are likely taking a calculated risk. Civil engineer Christopher Miller recently participated in a Strong Towns Crash Analysis Studio examining a crash in Charlotte, North Carolina. In a subsequent interview with Strong Towns, Miller pointed out, “The person was trying to catch the bus. This is a bus that comes once an hour…. If you see the bus approaching, you have one opportunity to catch it because if you miss this bus, you’re pretty much screwed. This is the type of risk that’s set up by design.”
These are the actual reasons people usually “jaywalk”: because we haven’t given them more acceptable options. And Ottawa’s policy appears to reinforce that. The city’s message to people who walk is, on one hand, “We’re not going to give you a safe crossing unless we see a lot of you jaywalking,” and, on the other hand, “If you jaywalk and you’re hit, it was your own fault.”
We owe our residents better. Safe street crossings should be a basic expectation in a major city. This can be accomplished through design, but not through design guidelines that explicitly trade off safety against mere seconds of motorist delay.
City staff indicated that they hoped their shocking, gruesome ad campaign would spark conversation. I suppose one can argue it has done that, but to what end?
Daniel Herriges has been a regular contributor to Strong Towns since 2015 and is also a founding member of the organization. His work at Strong Towns focuses on housing issues, small-scale and incremental development, urban design, and lowering the barriers to entry for people to participate in creating resilient and prosperous neighborhoods. Daniel has a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Minnesota, with a concentration in Housing and Community Development.
Daniel’s work with Strong Towns reflects a lifelong fascination with cities and how they work. When he’s not perusing maps (for work or pleasure), he can be found exploring out-of-the-way neighborhoods on foot or bicycle. Daniel has lived in Northern California and Southwest Florida, and he now resides back in his hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota, along with his wife and two children.