Moncton council to reconsider painting rainbow crosswalks

Moncton council is set to reconsiderwhether to paintrainbow crosswalks a year after staff said the multi-coloured crossings are a liability risk.

Coun. Shawn Crossman plans to introduce amotion Monday calling on the city to resume painting the crosswalks in support of theLGBTQ community.

"I want to see this go forward, I want to see the support for the LGBTQ community and show them that Moncton is behind them 100 per cent," Crossman said in an interview.

Monctonpainted rainbow crosswalks at intersections along Main Streetbetween Lutz and Mechanic streets in 2016 and 2017, but stopped in2018. The city instead hoisted dozens of small rainbow flags on light poles along Main Street and painted a portion of the city's Riverfront Trail.

Dieppe, Riverview, and many other New Brunswick communities continueto paint rainbow crossings. Halifax announcedon Thursday it would paint 19crosswalks, five more than lastyear.

Charles MacDougall, project co-ordinator withMoncton-area LGBTQ advocacy group River of Pride, said the crosswalks were visible signs of solidarity and support that helped make people feel safe.

"Moncton is the only municipality that we really know of that regressed on their practice of painting rainbow crosswalks,"MacDougallsaid. "It'supsetting that that happened, and we're hoping that the council will make the right decision and paint rainbow crosswalks in 2019 andour community can take pride in the city that we live in."

City staff say national guidelines for crosswalk designby the Transportation Association of Canada call for using lines painted white.

Stphane Thibodeau, Moncton's parking and transportation co-ordinator, told council last year that rainbow crossings could open the city to liability risks if a collision occurred. Thibodeau wasn't able to point to any communities where such crosswalks had actually been a problem.

Erica Andersen, a spokesperson for theTransportation Association of Canada, said in an emailits guidelines aren't intended to be used as the basis for establishing civil liability.

"Rather, they provide best practices as a starting point for decisions by local jurisdictions, which are also informed by the professional engineering judgment of practitioners in the field," she said.

Andersen said an initial assessment by association volunteer experts in Aprilfoundinsufficient data or research on decorative crossings to support new guidelines.

Research will be proposed this fall to examinehow decorative crosswalksaffect driver perception and levels of driver or pedestrian distraction, and the impact on recognition by automated vehicles and driver assistance systems.

Results may not be available until 2021.

Crossman pointed toEdmonton, where a June 2015 pilot project involving six rainbow crosswalksfound they did not decrease pedestrian safety.

"Overall, the rainbow crosswalks did not decrease pedestrian safety and may have contributed positively to improve motorist stopping/yielding and crosswalk encroachment behaviour,"the city reported.The report noted other factors may contribute to motorist behaviour at each intersection and suggested further study.

Province 'encouraged' rainbow crosswalks

Isabelle LeBlanc, Moncton's director of communications, said in an email that staff's position remains the same as last year. She suggestedthe province says communities "are to follow"the national guidelines.

"The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure is leaving the discretion to implement decorative crosswalks with the municipalities until (the Transportation Association of Canada) review is complete,"Jeremy Trevors, a spokesperson for the department, said in an email Friday.

Last year, Bill Fraser, who was the New Brunswick transportation minister, sent a letter to several municipalities saying the province wouldn't approve rainbow crosswalks, citing the national guidelines.

However, Brian Gallant, the premier at the time, saidmunicipalities are allowed and "encouraged" to paint rainbow crosswalks.

Fraser issued a second letter to communitiesapologizing and saying that the first letter wasan "incorrect version" and that the province supports painting rainbow crosswalks.