Giving ambulances, fire trucks priority at traffic lights could cut their travel times, Winnipeg study says
No recommendation to proceed with life-saving transportation upgrade, which would cost $930K a year
Winnipeg fire trucks and ambulances could cut down on travel time by 20 per cent if the city upgrades its transportation management system to give emergency vehicles priority at traffic signals, a study says.
A city-commissioned feasibility study says a system that allows pre-emption of normal operation of traffic lights to give emergency vehicles priority would allow the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service to save more lives, prevent more properties from being lost to fire and save $25 million a year in health-care and insurance costs.
But there is no recommendation for the city to institute emergency vehicle pre-emption, or EVP, as the city would be on the hook for all the costs.
"The main benefits of EVP are largely external to the city, in the form of decreased health-care costs and reduced property lost to fires, while the city would directly bear the cost of acquiring and implementing an EVP system," MORR Transportation Consulting writes in the study, published by city council on Tuesday morning.
In a report to city council's community services committee, fire-paramedic service program manager Linda Hathout recommends council receive the report as information, without taking further action.
Deputy Fire Chief Tom Wallace said before the city proceeds with any upgrades, the fire-paramedic service must work with the city's traffic-signals division to ensure the emergency vehicle pre-emption can work as well in Winnipeg as it does in cities where it has been implemented, such as Vancouver.
"This looks like a really practical solution to improving safety during our emergency responses, not to mention the potential positive patient outcomes," Wallace said in an interview on Tuesday.
The study authored by MORR says Winnipeg already has the ability to give emergency vehicles priority at 24 of its 681 intersections with signals.
Upgrading the entire system to a centralized EVP system would cost $930,000 a year, the study says, though a more limited application of EVP could cost as little as $80,000 a year.
The study says the benefits of the spending would outweigh the costs, as citywide EVP could cut down the average ambulance or fire truck travel time by 54 seconds.
The report cites other studies that said time savings of mere seconds reduce deaths from heart attacks, and every minute significantly reduces the chance of losing properties to fire.
Who will pay?
The report is slated to go before council's community services committee on Nov. 28.
The committee's new chair, Coun. John Orlikow (River Heights-Fort Garry), said he has questions about who should pay for the program.
"Will the province come in and help out as well because that's an ambulance service?" he asked, raising the perennial city concern about the city paying for a health-care service it considers a provincial responsibility.
"Then do we have to not build so many fire stations?"
The fire-paramedic service plans to reduce the number of stations it opertaes in Winnipeg to 24 from 30. Emergency vehicle pre-emption is required to make that happen, Wallace said.
The union representing Winnipeg's firefighters would rather see the city spend money on other priorities, such as a new fire-paramedic station in Waverley West and improved staffing to reduce a reliance on overtime.
"Before we even consider pre-emption, we should be building proper fire halls and adjusting our staffing ratio. That's how you effect change. That's how you have proper response times and the number of people on scene," said Tom Bilous, president of the United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg.
"I mean, pre-emption doesn't carry people downstairs. It doesn't pull people out of windows."
Lead cleanup at 2 sites
In a separate report to council's community services committee, the city's parks and open spaces division says in 2023, it wants to clean up lead-contaminated soil at Weston Memorial Community Centre's hockey rink and the eastern end of Mission Park.
The division is asking council to set aside $450,000 in next year's budget to do the work.
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