Speaking for Safety and for Sustainability
At A Path Less Travelled our President, Marcel J. Huculak, M. Sc., P. Eng., through his 30+ years of experience as a transportation engineer, developed technical tools that allow him to speak for safety and for sustainability. Here are some examples of that experience.
Capital Region Intersection Safety Partnership (CRISP)
CRISP partners include enforcement, emergency responders, health educators, and engineers from staff working for various agencies in Alberta’s Capital Region. They share resources and expertise to implement intersection safety research and initiatives. More details about CRISP are at their website: https://drivetolive.ca.
In 2012 Marcel asked to join CRISP as a volunteer engineer based on his passion for traffic safety. He was accepted and it has been a growing experience.
Marcel gained a great introduction and education to Safe System. CRISP conducted two staged studies into Safe System. Marcel was on the technical committee that managed the Australian Safe System team from Monash University in Melbourne. Marcel gained first hand experience into the Safe System background, basis, and application to Edmonton area problem intersections from world-leading experts.
Marcel found ways to further educate himself on Safe System. Later he began to integrate Safe System principals into his transportation engineering practice. He applies Safe System as a means to guide a project to choose infrastructure that greatly reduces or eliminates serious injury to road users.
At CRISP Marcel works with a diverse group of professionals. This gives Marcel a comprehensive view of traffic safety that includes infrastructure (the typical focus of engineers) but also driver behaviour, enforcement, political considerations, medical interventions, and vehicle design and operation. Marcel found that a diverse group of professionals working together are far better suited to address traffic safety as opposed to the traditional model of working within each professional’s silo.
Marcel continues to actively participate in CRISP meetings.
Edson Roundabout
The Alberta Government planned a new health center in the Town of Edson. Part of that planning work included a typical Transportation Impact Assessment to identify transportation upgrades to meet the traffic generated by the health centre. Marcel was responsible for reviewing the Assessment and providing comments.
The health centre’s main access road intersected a major north/south road operated by the Town. The risk of a serious injury collision at this intersection was assessed as relatively high because of the intersection’s skew and operating speeds on the Town’s road. Briefly, in Safe System terms, should a driver make a mistake at a typical four-way intersection at these speed, the chance of a serious injury collision was unacceptably high.
Marcel recommended a roundabout to minimize this injury risk. At the roundabout, drivers must enter at much lower speeds. Thus, if they make a mistake resulting in a crash, at these lower speeds it is far less likely that the crash will be serious.
The air photo below (from Google Maps) shows the health centre now in operation with the roundabout.
Belgravia Hub and Gracious Goods
In 2018 the City of Edmonton began rehabilitating the road and sidewalk infrastructure in the Edmonton community of Belgravia. In late 2017 Marcel saw a place-making opportunity to make Belgravia more walkable and livable.
The opportunity was in front of the restaurants of the Belgravia Hub and Gracious Goods. There was a public service road acting as a parking area for their patrons (images from Google Maps and Streetsview):
The opportunity was to create room for a sidewalk café for both restaurants by re-orienting the parking to 115 Street. Marcel sketched out his vision:
Marcel realized buy-in from the restaurant owners was essential. As a community advocate Marcel met with both owners to share the plan and seek their support, which they granted. Marcel then shared his sketch and owner-feedback with the City rehabilitation staff as well as the area’s City Councillor. Marcel continued to meet with the owners and City staff as they negotiated various details of the plan.
The result was a much more aesthetically pleasing urban landscape. Both restaurants now have opportunities for sidewalk cafes, creating more street life for the community and more business income for their restaurants.
