OPINION: Toronto's Road Safety Strategy is a Lethal Farce
AI-generated image · Bay Street Wire
Police data reveals a surge in pedestrian and motorcyclist deaths as City Hall leans on a decade-long timeline for infrastructure that should have been built yesterday.
The blood on Toronto's streets is the only honest metric of City Hall's road safety performance, and the latest numbers are a catastrophe. According to data from the Toronto police traffic services unit reported by CBC Toronto, 21 pedestrians have died in traffic collisions so far this year—a 24 per cent increase over last year. At this rate, the city is on track to exceed the 44 deaths recorded in 2022, which was the highest number in recent years.
This isn't just a pedestrian crisis. CBC Toronto reports that motorcyclist deaths have hit a five-year high, with 11 fatalities as of Oct. 5, marking a 57 per cent increase over the same period last year.
While the province removed speed cameras last November, the city's proposed alternatives are a joke. A February city staff report cited by CBC Toronto warns that installing traffic calming measures throughout the city could cost $52 million and take 13 years to complete. This glacial pace is unacceptable. Jess Spieker of Friends and Families for Safe Streets told CBC Toronto that driving behavior is worsening and that the current trajectory puts the city on track for roughly 49 traffic collision fatalities by year-end.
Ministry of Transportation spokesperson Dakota Brasier told CBC Toronto that speed bumps and roundabouts are the best safety tools, noting a $10 million provincial road safety initiative fund for measures that don't change vehicle lanes. But for residents like Gary Smith, who told CBC Toronto that walking in the city is a "life and death issue," these bureaucratic crumbs are insufficient. When the city's own June report confirms a significant increase in speeding where cameras once stood, the failure is absolute. We are sacrificing citizens to a 13-year project plan.