Table 1 - Collisions during school hours (6am-6pm on weekdays) involving pedestrians nearby Public or Catholic Board Schools (2015-2022 Q2)
I dug into Kitchener's traffic accident data from 2015 to mid-2022. Out of 8,928 traffic accidents recorded, only 395 involved pedestrians. But let's zoom in further—after all, we're specifically interested in accidents near schools during school hours.
So I looked at:
- Accidents within 250 meters of a school
- During school days
- Between 6am and 6pm
To determine where schools are, I use the list of public schools supplied by the Waterloo District School Board (Waterloo District School Board 2024) and the Catholic School Board (Waterloo Catholic District School Board, 2024). I focus only on Kitchener schools for this study because the traffic data is only for Kitchener. The latitude and longitude for each school are resolved based on the address using OpenStreetMap and Google Maps. The Kitchener Traffic data already contains the latitude and longitude of each accident. I downloaded traffic accident data from Kitchener supplied by the Region of Waterloo’s open data website (City of Kitchener 2024).
The grand total? 29 accidents near public schools and 6 near Catholic schools over 7.5 years. That's about 4.7 accidents per year across all schools in Kitchener. Not exactly the epidemic of danger one might expect given the rush to install cameras everywhere. See Table 1 for a breakdown of where accidents happened.
Table 1 - Collisions during school hours (6am-6pm on weekdays) involving pedestrians nearby Public or Catholic Board Schools (2015-2022 Q2)
Here's where it gets interesting. Most accidents are concentrated in two areas:
1. Downtown schools
2. Williamsburg area
The "winner" is Margaret Avenue Public School with six accidents. But here's the catch—many accidents happened at the intersection of Margaret Avenue and Wellington Street, where there's already a traffic light and crosswalk. (Being on the way to a highway exit nearby probably doesn't help.)
Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate Institute (KCI) had four accidents, mostly at intersections with existing traffic controls. One 2021 accident happened near a sharp corner with poor visibility— the kind of thing that speed cameras don't actually fix.
Four accidents happened near Williamsburg Public School, mainly around Max Becker Drive, Isabella Street, and Commonwealth Street. Three more occurred near Catholic schools in the area.
Many of these accidents happened at intersections that already have traffic lights and crosswalks. You can see all of the accidents on the Google Maps visualization. Let's break it down:
- Margaret Avenue Public School: 100% of accidents at intersections
- KCI: 75% at intersections
- Williamsburg: Mixed bag, but several at intersections
Speed cameras won't help if someone crosses against a light or if a driver makes an improper turn. They're essentially solving the wrong problem.
Collisions with pedestrians that occurred within a 250 meter radius of schools in Kitchener, Ontario between 2015 and 2022 (data up to 2022 Q2). This updated map shows accidents near public and Catholic schools. (The previous map showed accidents near public schools only.)
All collisions recorded took place between daytime hours, 6am - 6pm, on weekdays.
Year of collision is represented by shading, with lighter shading representing earlier years.
The total number of collisions in the city of Kitchener were as follows:
2015-2016 - 13 collisions
2017-2018 - 13 collisions
2019-2020 - 3 collisions
2021-2022 - 6 collisions
Note: This is 250m radius around the school, which seems to be a reasonable estimate of the streets surrounding a school on all sides that are most likely to be affected by the creation or rule change regarding speed limits or installation of traffic cameras.
The city has already implemented some effective solutions. Take King Edwards Public School as an example —after an accident, they installed:
* A new crosswalk connecting the school to the park
* Speed bumps
* Regular crosswalk guards during school hours
These physical changes work because they:
1. Show pedestrians where to cross
2. Signal drivers to be cautious
3. Work immediately (unlike cameras that send tickets days later)
Figure 1 - Type of Collision Involving a Pedestrian That Took Place within 250m of a Public School or Catholic School in Kitchener, Ontario.
Overall, the data doesn't support installing speed cameras at every school in the region. We're looking at fewer than 5 accidents per year across all schools, mostly at intersections where cameras won't help. Figure 1 shows a breakdown of all accident types, each year from 2015 to the second quarter of 2022.
Instead of spending money on cameras (plus their maintenance and bureaucracy), why not invest in proven solutions like:
- Speed bumps
- Crosswalks
- Crossing guards
- Better intersection design
These solutions are cheaper, work immediately, and don't require a new bureaucracy to manage them.
City of Kitchener. 2024. “Traffic Collisions.” 2024. https://data.waterloo.ca/datasets/KitchenerGIS::traffic-collisions/.
Fraser, Justine. 2024. “Region Looks to Expand Speed Camera Program with Council Motion.” CityNews Kitchener (blog). August 9, 2024. https://kitchener.citynews.ca/2024/08/09/region-looks-to-expand-speed-camera-program-with-council-motion/.
MacKay, Jon. 2024. “Kitchener Pedestrian Collisions Near Schools.” Google My Maps. 2024. https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=19gYtFXF_g_xqhNLUe56Asq1jgkOu5IY&hl=en.
Waterloo District School Board. 2024. “School List.” Waterloo Region District School Board. 2024. https://www.wrdsb.ca/our-schools/schools/.
Waterloo Catholic District School Board. 2024. “Waterloo Catholic District School Board School, Principal and Program Sites, 2023-2024.” Waterloo, Ontario. https://www.wcdsb.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2024/01/School-List-Website-Feb-1-2024.pdf.