CARSP SNN Video Interview Transcript (Summer 2024)
Date: July 11, 2024
Interviewer: Dr. Emily McCullogh, York University, member of the CARSP editorial board
Interviewee: Dr. Alison Macpherson, Associate Professor in the School of Kinesiology and
Health Science at York University, prominent injury prevention and road safety public health
researcher, and advocate. Dr. Macpherson will be sharing insights regarding the substantive
links between safe and sustainable transportation and meaningful action against climate
change.
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Emily: Can you tell us a fun fact about yourself?
Alison: Sure. I think something that is perhaps a bit unusual about me is I have, in the course of
my research and personal career, visited 30 countries around the world. But I have never been to
Scotland, which is the country that my ancestors settled from.
Emily: How did you get involved in the injury prevention and road safety world?
Alison: Well, that is a bit of a long story. I actually started my career in health administration and
I was working as a manager at the Montreal Children's Hospital. At that time Dr. Barry Pless,
who is Canada's preeminent injury researcher and formed the foundation of Injury Research in
Canada and around the world, had just started the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and
Prevention (CHIRP) program at children's hospitals across Canada, including the Montreal
children's hospital. I was a manager and our staff were responsible for handing the form to
parents and giving them instructions on how to fill it out. And at that time, which was the early
1990s, injuries were really seen as just an accident. A kid got hit by a car, “Oh, it is an accident.”
A school bus ran over a kid on the way to school, “Oh, it is an accident.” But looking at the
CHIRP forms and seeing all the children coming to the emergency department, I realized that
injury was actually a huge child health problem and that children were getting injured doing
things that they shouldn't be getting injured doing, such as being hit by cars when they are
crossing the street. So, my career changed. I decided to pursue a master's in epidemiology and
biostatistics at McGill University under the supervision of Dr. Berry Pless and that study was
part of an international study, looking at child pedestrian injuries and children's exposure to
cars. So, we were counting how many cars, how many streets children crossed on their way to
school and home from school, and how that was associated with the child pedestrian injury rate.
So, that was my first step into it. I have always been passionate that children should be safe to
walk and bike to school, to the park, so that they can enjoy their environment. It promotes
healthy child development, and it also promotes sustainable transportation.
Emily: How is safe and sustainable transportation connected to action against climate change?
Alison: Every time you get somebody out of a car and into a more sustainable mode of
transportation, the carbon footprint decreases. That is the simple answer. But it is not actually
that simple. In North America and other parts of the world, including Australia and the US, we
have designed our cities and our environment to be very car-friendly. Traditionally, the job of
traffic engineers has been to get cars from their point of departure to their destination as quickly
and seamlessly as possible. This has created an environment that is unsafe for pedestrians and
cyclists. The car-centric environment means there are signs for pedestrians to yield to cars and a lack of bike lanes, for example. It is hard for people to get around by bike if there is no network of bike lanes.
When I first came to Toronto in 1998, I was set on biking from my home to my place of
employment, which was at Sick Kids Hospital, and it was terrifying. I chose to switch modes of
transportation because I did not feel safe biking. So, if transportation is not safe people will
choose modes that are safer and the default mode often tends to be the car. If active
transportation is safe, many more people will walk and bike. Some people say, “it is too cold in
Canada to bike in the winter.” Well, Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto have made major strides
in making bike lanes safe by clearing snow. So, if bike lanes are open people will bike. They
have great biking mitts, they dress up warmly, and they ride their bikes year round. So, I think
safe transportation is the foundation of all of this because, as I said earlier, if people don't feel
safe, they will not walk and bike. If we are serious about climate change and we are serious
about promoting sustainable transportation and safety of vulnerable road users, or people not in
cars, safe transportation has to be of paramount importance.
Emily: It sounds like the design of the built environment has a huge impact on people's desire
to choose that type of travel because amenities are further away in these car-centric urban
centers.
Alison: Yes, first and foremost, the built environment is what has to change. Sidewalks have to
connect, streets have to be slower, and we need an all ages and abilities bicycle network, so
that people who are just starting out to bike can feel safe and protected from cars all the way
along their journey, not just on the part that is along the waterfront or the part that is along Bloor
Street in Toronto. It has to be a network, we need to change the built environment.
Emily: Do you have any advice for our CARSP members on how to start projects or initiatives
that promote safe and sustainable transportation to combat climate change?
Alison: Fundamentally, it comes down to partnerships. For me, this is not an academic
exercise. I don't spend time sitting alone in my office thinking about how to make things safer.
We have to work in partnership with municipalities and other levels of government because it is their policies around the built environment on our roadways that need to change. We also need
partnerships with academics across the country. Finally, we can't forget our community partners
and advocacy groups. For example, Parachute Canada has been a key partner in every
research project that I have ever done because they have their ear to the ground. They do a lot
of Knowledge Translation. They share results of studies in a way that is digestible. Also other
organizations such as the bicycling organizations (the pro-bike folks) and Ever Active Schools
(people in the schoolboards who are trying to get kids to walk and bike to school), we need to
harness the energy from those partners as well, and remember that it took quite a long time to
make our roads this car-centric. It is going to take a long time to make them safer and we will
face very active opposition from people who are attached to getting around in their cars, and
who wants to get from A to B as quickly as they possibly can. They want to have parking that is
easy and they just want to maintain the way of life that we have fostered in North America for many years.
Emily: So part of the challenge is to start structuring our built environment so that the car is not
the best choice?
Alison: Yes, and doing that in a way that recognizes that many people still believe that the car
is the only mode of accessible transportation. If people can't walk or bike, then they have to
drive. I don't think that is true. I think we can be a lot more creative in our solutions. But the
default is, “I'm 85 years old, I have driven a car all my life, I want to go watch my grandchild play
soccer in a park, I can't walk there, I want to be able to drive there,” and that is understandable. I
think we have to listen to people and understand what their concerns are, but this is just not a
sustainable way for us to keep moving forward, with the car as the default mode of
transportation. It is just going to be a disaster for our planet.
Of course, there are other things we can do too, but this is one thing that is well within our
means. The other thing to remember is that active transportation is more equitable for people
who can't afford to drive a car. Active transportation is better for people. When kids walk to
school they arrive at school more ready to learn because they have gotten a bit of exercise and
some time to leave their house to get to school on the way. If you watch kids walk down the
street, they look at the trees, they look at the flowers, they pet the dogs, they do all sorts of
things on their way to school. So, although climate change is one super important aspect to this,
there are many other benefits to individuals into society by trying to make us all less dependent
on our cars.
Emily: Is there anything else you would like to share today?
Alison: No. Thank you for doing this. It has been a real pleasure.
Emily: Thank you so much for your time and sharing your wisdom.