It was an evening of sharing ideas and discussion in the lobby of City Hall in North Bay on Nov. 12.
Megan Rochefort, a City of North Bay municipal engineer helped lead a Road Safety Open House.
Statistics revealed about 800 collisions took place in the City of North Bay last year, and municipal officials are looking at ways to make it safer with some guidance from the public.
"What I'm hearing is that the public really does care about road safety," said Rochefort. "I think that ultimately it's something that affects all of us, from pedestrians to road users as cyclists or even just driving a vehicle, it impacts all of us."
See related: More than 800 collisions on City roadways each year! What's wrong?
Ali Hadayeghi, is an engineer with the engineering consulting firm CIMA. He believes the accident statistics in North Bay are not that alarming.
"I don't see anything unusual here," he said.
"Not much different, obviously, your number of fatalities is very low, so obviously we want to reduce it. But compared to different municipalities and or jurisdictions, I didn't see any difference."
Rochefort says the public was very engaged, particularly in issues like aggressive and distracted driving, pedestrian safety, and school zones.
She emphasizes a holistic approach to road safety, focusing on proactive measures to address these concerns.
"We have heard from the public specific areas that they care most about," said Rochefort.
"I think there's a lot of passion here tonight. I think that ultimately the common themes that I'm hearing are aggressive, driving, distracted driving, pedestrians, and children. You know, school zones are a really big one that that's been the main topic that I've been hearing from the public."
For North Bay, they aim to reduce total collisions and injury collisions by 15 per cent over five years.
Hadayaghi notes that North Bay's collision data is good, and while North Bay's fatality rates are low compared to other municipalities, there's no significant uniqueness in their situation.
