In Peel Region last year, over a span of less than four months, three pedestrians and one cyclist were killed by large transport trucks.

Drivers on the GTA’s busy highways commonly report dangers such as tires, rocks and large shards of ice that fly off trucks, but fatalities involving pedestrians and cyclists in the 905 who are increasingly forced to share local roads with these vehicles, get far less attention.

“My nephew should still be alive. It was a needless accident,” said Gian Singh Kang, whose nephew was killed when he fell off his bicycle and was run over by the rear wheels of a transport truck in October 2015 while on his way to work at a factory.

“There was no lighting, no proper shoulder,” Kang said.

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It was dark, in the early morning, when Hardeep Singh Pahra, a 30-year-old Brampton resident with a wife and two young children, was struck along Steeles Ave., west of Albion Rd. Peel police said the driver of the truck might not have even realized Pahra had been run over along the corridor, which police said is used heavily by commercial transport vehicles. No charges were laid in the case due to weather conditions and poor visibility, police said.

Steeles Ave. is one of many commuter arteries across the 905 — where the population has exploded in the last two decades — that routinely sees a dangerous mix of large trucks, pedestrians and cyclists sharing spaces that seem incongruous for such use.

The province of Ontario had planned, among other transportation objectives, to reduce the volume of commercial truck traffic on municipal roads and commuter arteries with the creation of the GTA West Corridor, a proposed 400-series highway connecting York Region and Halton Region, but the plan was halted late last year by the Liberal government. The government has said it will provide an update on whether the plan will move forward “as soon as it’s available.”

Ministry of Transportation spokesperson Bob Nichols said in an email that the province is a leader when it comes to truck safety. He said the number of deaths in Ontario involving trucks, including accidents with all vehicles, declined between 2003 and 2012 (there was a spike in 2007) despite the number of registered trucks increasing by 20 per cent over that period. In 2012 there were 100 deaths in accidents involving trucks, compared to 155 in 2003 (there were 170 in 2007), Nichols said.

As for pedestrian and cyclist safety, the president of the Ontario Trucking Association said that while better highway infrastructure for commercial vehicles would help with local traffic safety, it’s not a silver bullet.

“Wherever you see a house, place of business, retail store or manufacturing, there’s going to be a truck going in there,” said Steve Laskowski. “We’re dealing with infrastructure built 50-years ago for vehicles. The reality now is we have more and more people wanting to use the roads for more than just their vehicles — pedestrians and cyclists. If we could do it all over again, we would, but we don’t have the luxury.”

Laskowski said there are three keys to reducing accidents between trucks and pedestrians or cyclists: education, enforcement of traffic laws and technology.

That technology includes semiautonomous commercial driving capabilities to detect dangers, to deal with blind spots and to break early. “We even have technology coming that won’t allow a cellphone to be used inside a truck while it’s in gear,” he said.

Such new technology probably wouldn’t have saved Diane Tsialtas.

A month before Pahra’s death, Tsialtas, a 49-year-old mother and grandmother, had been walking along Meadowvale Blvd. in an area of Mississauga with heavy commercial traffic when two wheels flew off a 14-wheel vehicle. One landed in a bush. The other wheel struck Tsialtas, who was on her way to work.

A month earlier another pedestrian was killed by a transport truck on Airport Rd. in Mississauga, along a corridor with a mix of residential, commercial and industrial spaces. And in November last year, a 21-year-old Brampton man was hit and dragged under a transport truck on Kennedy Rd., just south of Steeles, before he died. It’s another corridor with a heavy volume of truck traffic.

Peel police said in an email that municipal planners and engineers “are tasked with creating the safest road system possible.

Regarding heavy volumes of truck traffic, the email states, “Traffic volume can be a problem for pedestrians and cyclists. It is important that the busiest streets should be travelled with the greatest caution and alertness.”

Laskowski and Peel police said the 905 has municipal corridors with some of the heaviest truck volumes in North America, such as Dixie Rd., near the 401 Highway.

Kevin Montgomery, who frequently cycles and is co-chair of the City of Brampton’s cycling advisory committee, said some safety problems for cyclists and pedestrians are linked to poor planning that forces commercial trucks into transportation spaces shared by residential users. He also thinks that focusing on the “busiest streets” is the wrong approach.

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“That’s a critical consideration in the Active Transportation Master Plan that’s currently being developed through our committee and (Brampton) staff,” he said. His committee is looking at ways to separate cyclists from “trucks on transport corridors, but also higher volumes of fast-moving traffic . . . by way of multi-use pathways, completely separated bike lanes” and other infrastructure currently uncommon in the 905.

Montgomery wants to see the “Vision Zero” approach in Brampton, which his committee is currently trying to implement. It’s the Scandinavian approach being looked at across much of the world now, including in Toronto. It shifts traffic safety away from just looking at hot spots.

“The goal has to be preventing every accident,” he said. “That might not be possible, but it should be the goal.”

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