Could a bridge over Dundas St. at Spadina in Chinatown solve the problem of pedestrian-car collisions and still maintain the cultural atmosphere of one of the most ethnically concentrated areas in the city?

A team of University of Toronto engineering students think so.

The intersection is one of Toronto’s worst, ranked 7th in the city for serious injuries to pedestrians – whether they cross with or without the light – who are hit by vehicles turning right.

The first-year students propose building a $530,000 pedestrian bridge that would run north-south on Spadina, taking people up and over Dundas St.

Bridges like this are “rare to see here, but very common in large cities in China,” said team member He Huang, who left that country only three years ago.

The proposal was presented this week at the University of Toronto engineering building as part of a year-end project for first-year students, who were asked to choose one of eight problems and create a design solution, based on the hypothetical premise that the city had money to implement it.

Topics included cyclist safety on Bloor St., harnessing urban wind tunnels and building electric vehicle charging stations.

The concrete bridge would be enclosed by glass and rise 7.5 metres into the air, an elevation needed to clear the streetcar wires. A wheelchair lift would be available on one of the four entrances and the bridge would take two minutes to cross.

Another proposal to redesign the intersection involved removing vendor stalls from the sidewalk and reserving the three-metre-wide space for pedestrians; shifting the streetcar tracks over to allow the creation of a pedestrian island for streetcars and enhancing the crosswalk by replacing faded paint, changing the pavement texture and installing in-ground lights.

Mohammad Abdel, 18, thought his team’s proposal was feasible, especially in light of information he had discovered only two days ago.

“Toronto is planning to reconstruct the streetcar tracks in 2011,” said Abdel, who redesigned the intersection with teammates Jirapat Likitlersuang, 19 and Susan Choi, 20. The city “would have spent the money anyways,” he said.