Rawlins Cross: The continuing St. John's soap opera

Perhaps I'm imagining it, but there seemed to be something gleeful in the speed with which the City of St. John's erased its traffic circle experiment in Rawlins Cross.

Before you knew it, the temporary concrete blocks at Flavin Street were nowhere to be seen, and a crosswalk over Monkstown Road was blacked out a nearly two-year long project cancelled in record time, in a city not exactly known for quickness.

If a Newfoundland soap opera ever gets the green light, it'll have to be called Rawlins Cross.

Just two days after the city reopened the dangerous middle section of Military Road, despite data showing the redesign had cut car crashes by half, drama ensued. Two cars crashed through the intersection onto the sidewalk, and smashed a wrought iron fence. It sent social media into a cackling chorus of "I-told-you-so"s. Only a soap opera would get away with this script.

The city, thanks to a global pandemic, finally seems to be realizing people need somewhere to walk without being run over.

I live a 120-second walk from Rawlins Cross and in non-quarantine times crossed it every day. The goal of the pilot project was to lower car speeds and dangerous crashes.

But almost from Day 1, people walking it told the city that something was off. While the city's final report essentially touted a success, it also took great pains to acknowledge that people on foot continually said they felt less safe than before, saying, "It can not be overstated how strongly some people feel pedestrian safety has diminished with the traffic circle in place."

This grey area aggravated folks who zeroed in on the car crash data. They saw it as data versus people's "feelings." To me this didn't seem to tell the whole story. What did it really mean?

In my experience it meant that instead of having red traffic lights between you and 2,000pounds of rolling steel, you now got to play an exciting game of chicken with cars rolling endlessly through yield signs.

As a confident adult, it was doable. With a kid in a stroller? Intimidating. Hard to imagine in a wheelchair. You're forced constantly to ask drivers for permission.

'Fatal flaw' in the redesign

And yet some pedestrians told the survey there were enough improvements to keep the pilot project permanently, things like the pedestrian space in the middle and the new crosswalk on MullockStreet. As a driver things flowed fine, as a cyclist it was a breeze.

Then one wet evening as I was driving downtown I slowed slightly to cross Military Road and suddenly hit the brakes. Out of the corner of my eye was a man on the crosswalk, walking east, directly in front of the large SUV beside me. That SUV, which I thought was slowing to turn, had completely blocked him from view.

To convince pedestrians, the city should have done the maximum for pedestrian safety on day one, not day 500.

This incident convinced me that there was a fatal flaw in this redesign. It rested on faith that drivers and pedestrians would follow the law to the letter, in perfect harmony. In truth, cars will always have the advantage.

Close calls like this are not reported to the police, and are not part of the survey data.

I circled back to watch two meetings of council as they hashed out these issues. It was clear that the protestations from Bishop Feild parents and other pedestrians had an effect.

Councillors discovered a sudden passion for pedestrian safety, a welcome display in a city where pedestrians routinely break bones, spirits, or literally die in part because of the city's failure to maintain clear sidewalks in winter.

Cars wereconsidered first

It is not obvious, even after nearly two years, why the city could not design a version of this vital intersection that worked for both vehicles and people. There was a brief chat about different pedestrian-triggered lights, but according to Coun.Sandy Hickman, council never asked staff to investigate whether the new traffic circle could coexist with stoplights.

What was obvious is that cars were the first things considered. Lanes were left too wide, speed bumps were removed for winter, and sidewalk plowing was laughably inconsistent. Cars burned around the blind corners near Catherine Street and RenniesMill Road all day, and still do.

Here we are, a hundred years later, still shuffling like lobsters. Holding our kids tight to the sidewalks.

Flashing beacons weren't installed for a year and a half. To convince pedestrians, the city should have done the maximum for pedestrian safety on Day 1, not Day 500. Councillors who liked the project tried to explain that more fixes could be made, but pedestrians don't trust the city to do the right thing. After two years, why would they?

In the past century, St. John's has gone from a dense, walkable city to one where walkers are guests. From Harbour Drive to the Outer Ring Road, cars own our streets.

'Unable to deal with the grey areas'

The late Rooms archivist Larry Dohey plucked a painfully brilliant quote from a St. John's newspaper in 1912:"The life of the average pedestrian in the city these days is one of perpetual peril. Let him attempt to cross a street, in broad daylight, and he is lucky if some auto doesn't come around the corner, at a rate of 15 miles an hour, and just miss him by a scant foot, while the chauffeur glowers at him as much to say, 'Get off the earth, you lobster. What right have you to be on the street?'"

Here we are, a hundred years later, still shuffling like lobsters. Holding our kids tight to the sidewalks.

What's perhaps most jarring is that city council seems unable to deal with the grey areas.

Having gotten to the really interesting part, where we might have taken pedestrians more seriously, council, having tried almost nothing to fix it, declared the experiment over. In the meantime we lost a legitimate public safety improvement and what might have been an exciting car-free zone in the middle of the cross itself. I don't think anyone wanted that.

Street space to people, not cars

The city's pilot projects are generally on the right track, but are leaving a list of abandoned solutions in their wake. It's obvious there's demand, and apparently the waiting list for traffic calming solutions is long. Yet here's the city, blackening out crosswalks. Until pedestrians feel safe and kids can walk to school, how does that happen?

The city, thanks to a global pandemic, finally seems to be realizing people need somewhere to walk without being run over. Montreal, Calgary, Paris, London and cities everywhere are giving more street space back to the people.

If sidewalks are expanded into certain St. John's streets as planned, and Water Street turns into a pedestrian mall, I may be rendered speechless.

Whether that happens or not we need the city to be more flexible, and to adopt a new mantra: people and bikes first, public transportation second, cars last, or maybe not at all.

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