A study looking at the number of pedestrian injuries that occurred in Vancouver between 2000 and 2005 has identified 32 hot spots in the city.

The peer-reviewed “Pedestrian Injury and the Built Environment: An environmental scan of hotspots”—published in the on-line journal BMC Public Health on July 14—also marks the Downtown Eastside as the most dangerous part of the city for pedestrians, accounting for nine of the hot spots and 10 percent of the injuries.

The neighbourhood had the two highest-ranked locations for vehicle-pedestrian accidents, namely the midblock part of East Hastings Street between Columbia and Main streets (49 incidents) and the intersection of East Hastings and Main streets (18).

Another intersection in the Downtown Eastside—West Hastings and Carrall streets—tied for the number three spot with the intersections of East Broadway and Commercial Drive, East Broadway and Fraser Street, and West Georgia and Burrard streets. The four locations had 12 injuries each.

“We noticed that pedestrian injury is certainly not random,” principal author and SFU assistant geography professor Nadine Schuurman told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview. “We’re interested in what the environmental correlates were. There’s very little work done on the influence of the built urban environment on rates of injury.”

The study notes that there were a total of 2,358 cases of pedestrians being hit by vehicles in Vancouver between 2000 and 2005, for an incidence rate of 66.6 for every 100,000 residents.

The paper puts forward two major points. “The most striking finding was the frequent presence of demonstrated environmental risk factors, coupled with a scarcity of traffic-calming and passive pedestrian safety countermeasures at many of the high-incident locations,” it states.

These risk factors included long blocks, bus stops, and curb parking. Only one of the 11 midblock hot spots had a marked and “signalized” crosswalk. Turns were banned at only four of the 21 dangerous intersections. Just nine of the 32 hot spots had medians or “traffic refuge islands”.

“A second important finding from the environmental scan was that bars were closely situated to many of the hot spots, while just two locations [East 41st Avenue and Fraser Street, and Clark Drive and East Broadway] had schools nearby,” the study notes. Twenty-one of the 32 hot spots were near outlets that serve alcohol.

In conversation, Schuurman stressed the importance of traffic-calming measures like signalized crosswalks. In areas where there are many establishments serving alcohol, she recommended imposing lower speed limits. For these same areas, the study suggests setting traffic signals to “dwell-on-red”, which means displaying a red or stop signal in all directions when no vehicular traffic is detected. This causes drivers to approach intersections at lower speeds.

Ann Livingston, a volunteer with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, told the Straight that she came across a draft of the study while conducting research for Downtown Eastside groups. They were seeking to have the Vancouver Police Department cancel hundreds of tickets handed out to neighbourhood residents.

According to these groups, the VPD issued over 1,000 tickets in December 2008 alone, including tickets for jaywalking, which carry a fine of $100.

“It came up because the police said, ”˜Oh, we’re giving jaywalking tickets to keep people safe,’ and we just call bullshit on it,” Livingston said. She said people in the neighbourhood have long been calling for city hall to set up traffic-calming measures such as longer pedestrian crossing signals.

“There’s traffic calming in every neighbourhood, but there’s never been a discussion of this here. And when we brought it up, we’ve been deferred: ”˜Oh, no, there are other places that have higher pedestrian problems than here.’ Then we find out that it’s a lie. We do have a terrific problem.”