Renewed calls for better road safety around Quebec schools rang through the province once again Wednesday morning.
Teachers, parents and young students chanting slogans and waving stop signs demonstrated outside schools across Quebec demanding the government do more to protect children on their way to school.
“Elected officials need to know that we don’t always feel safe walking to school,” said parent Danielle Major while protesting with her children outside Jonathan school in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent borough.
“Our kids deserve better. Our kids should walk to school – it’s good for their health, it’s good for the environment (but) our pedestrian crossings, many are unsafe.”
Demonstrators are demanding road safety measures be a part of the upcoming provincial budget, to be tabled on March 21.
Calls for new safety measures sparked a growing movement following the death of seven-year-old Ukrainian refugee Mariia Legenkovska. She was fatally struck while walking to school with her siblings on the morning of Dec. 13, 2022.
The hit-and-run tragedy has since prompted the City of Montreal to implement more traffic-calming measures on local streets.
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Municipal officials have also vowed the surroundings of 50 establishments frequented by children, including schools and daycare centres as well as two parks, will be made safer by the end of 2023.
The latest figures from Quebec’s automobile insurance board, the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), showed 39 pedestrians died on the province’s highways and roads in the first nine months of 2022.
That’s a rise of 14.7 per cent compared with the previous year.
The board’s full report for 2022 will be released in March.
In a previous statement to Global News, Louis-Julien Dufresne, a spokesperson for the transport ministry, said the government alongside the Quebec Automobile insurance board ( SAAQ), has been working with municipalities in the past year investing more than $100 million combined in road safety awareness and prevention campaigns.
“We will continue, with the municipalities, to do everything in our power to avoid accidents and save lives,” Dufresne said.
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