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Originally Posted by waterloowarrior
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Swedish road design could mean fewer deadly head-on collisions on Highway 50 near Gatineau
Alarmed by the death toll between 2012 and 2019, Quebec transportation officials adapted an innovation from Sweden in a bid to reduce head-on crashes there by 96 per cent.
Elizabeth Payne, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Sep 12, 2020 • Last Updated 6 hours ago • 3 minute read
It is just a 5.4 km stretch of highway, but Canadian road safety advocates see recent changes to Highway 50 near Gatineau as a path to a future with fewer deadly head-on crashes.
Between 2012 and 2019 there were five fatal and four serious crashes on the mainly two-lane stretch of Highway 50 east of Gatineau, said a spokesperson for Quebec’s transportation ministry. Alarmed by that toll, Quebec transportation officials adapted an innovation from Sweden that the province says will reduce head-on crashes on the stretch of road by 96 per cent.
The province plans to widen the section of Highway 50 to four lanes in the next three years, but didn’t want to wait until then to make it safer. Earlier this year, Quebec’s transportation ministry installed a cable barrier between the two lanes in addition to other steps such as improved signs and lighting, moves the province says will dramatically reduce crossover head-on crashes. Research and experience from other countries supports that.
The work, which was done relatively quickly and cheaply without major modification to the road, was complete this summer.
Road safety advocates, such as Mark Wilson of Tamiskaming Shores, Ont., have long pressed provincial governments to follow the lead of Sweden and other countries and do what Quebec has now done on Highway 50 using cable barrier. So far, the 5.4 km stretch of Highway 50 is the only one of its kind in Canada.
But cable barriers and other separations are used widely in other parts of the world along with so-called two-plus-one highway designs that include alternating passing lanes.
Wilson, whose teenaged son died as a result of a crossover head-on crash on two-lane Highway 11 near New Liskeard in 2011, has made it his mission in life to learn about and lobby to bring such safety innovations to Canada. He works with a local group GEMS (Going the Extra Mile for Safety), which has been pressing the Ontario government to create a two-plus-one road pilot project in northern Ontario where two-lane highways are common, and crash rates are significantly higher than the rest of the province.
He has spent his vacations travelling to Sweden and elsewhere to research the traffic safety measures and drive the highways.
In August, the Quebec government invited him to come see the completed work on Highway 50 for himself.
Wilson said he was “really encouraged” to see the work done on Highway 50.
“This is the model that really started in Sweden,” he said. “To see that kind of a model in Canada was great. It really is the first of its kind.”
The flexible cable prevents cars from crossing over into an oncoming lane and restricts dangerous passing, both of which can cause head-on crashes, which are responsible for a majority of traffic related deaths every year.
Concrete barriers between oncoming lanes of traffic require a larger median. The advantage of cable barriers is that they can be built on narrow medians, allowing the model to be used widely without major, costly road reconstruction.
Wilson, whose group has met with Ontario’s transportation minister Carolyn Mulroney and others has proposed a two-plus one pilot project. He said he is optimistic that the Gatineau-area highway project will encourage Ontario to try something similar.
The Highway 50 project is not a true two-plus-one highway, he said. It has alternating passing lanes on some, but not all, stretches. In some parts it is simply two lanes divided by a cable barrier. In Sweden and elsewhere, two-plus-one roads build a third lane on alternating sides of the highway to allow for easier passing. They are significantly cheaper and faster to build, and cost on average about one-quarter or one-third of the cost of twinning a highway.
Importantly for Wilson and other road safety advocates, it represents putting safety first, something critics say Canadian officials do too seldom.
“When you talk about crossover collisions, the odds of dying are so much higher than with same direction collisions. What you are trying to do is prevent those crashes or make them a lot less severe,” he said.
That model has been widely adopted, he noted, but not in North America.
“This is a good start.”
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https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...cm/02108993-b122-44ae-a265-3aa2d8a47680/
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